Observing Log for Mike Durkin
10/15/22 about 10:00PM-11:30PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5
Temperature: 55-65 degrees
Equipment: Stellarvue 70mm refractor
Visually measured variable stars SS Aqr, SW Peg, S Per and Y Per.
I started with Jupiter for the evening since the Great Red Spot was supposed
to be transiting at the time. I was able to use the 6.7mm eyepiece and a
3x Barlow lens to get a magnification of 188x. The GRS was not obvious
although I could see a gap or some feature in one of the equitorial bands
that was the GRS. I was pleasantly surprised on the image quality with such
magnification, although the color was definitely muted. Also saw 3 of the
Galielean moons.
M15 - Very obvious to see. I think it was just the core however since it
did not appear as large as I was expecting. Unable to resolve individual
stars.
Double Cluster in Perseus.
10/14-15/22 about 10:30PM-1:00AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: 40-50 degrees
Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC and Hutech modified Canon T3i
I wanted to test out using the ASIAir again and see how polar alignment would
work. I forgot how to connect with my iPhone and had to look it up. I had to
disable Cellular Data in Settings.
I started by focusing on Jupiter in my camera. While using Live Preview and at
10x magnification, I'd say that Jupiter looked pretty good in the display, although
I could not save the image. I also started to see the Great Red Spot start to
come into view. I also was able to see some of the Galilean moons.
After that I decided to see if I could find some sort of galaxy. After
flailing around for a while, I settled on M33. I also actually think for
maybe the first time I was able to detect M33 in my finderscope as a barely
brighter patch.
After that I looked at Mars in the camera's Live Preview. It had a gibbous shape
and I think I could detect a bit of a polar cap. I also think I saw some dark
patches, although the seeing made it hard to determine the exact location on the
disk.
Then I took a couple of pictures of the waning gibbous Moon.
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Long Island, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: 40-50 degrees Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC and Hutech modified Canon T3i Exposure: 180s Processed in GIMP Just a test for taking an image of M33 in my SCT. Some ring artifacts around the edges, perhaps due to waning gibbous moon? |
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Long Island, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: 40-50 degrees Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC and Hutech modified Canon T3i Exposure: 1/400 s Processed in GIMP |
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Long Island, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: 40-50 degrees Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC and Hutech modified Canon T3i Exposure: 1/640 s Processed in GIMP |
10/9/22 about 9:00PM-10:00PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing ??/5
Temperature: 45-55 degrees
Equipment: Hutech modified Canon T3i
DSLR photometry of R Lyr and P Cyg. It has been a while since I've done
R Lyr. I also did both stars as ISO 800, which isn't usual for my
routine.
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