Observing Log for Mike Durkin 5/31/2024-6/1/2024 about 10:00PM-2:00AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 8/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 50-65 degrees Equipment: Meade Lightbridge 16 inch First some visual observing. M104, Sombrero Galaxy - Was just barely able to see it. A definite oval shape but could not detect the dust lane. NGC4762 - egde on spiral. Saw a sliver and not too hard to see at least some of it. M53 - globular cluster. A little smaller and compact than I expected. Also didn't seem totally spherical in shape. I could start to resolve some stars, but not very distinct. M64, Black Eye Galaxy - seemed to be able to see some of the more extended disk. I wasn't certain however if I could make out the "black eye" part. M57, Ring Nebula - this actually looked pretty nice, maybe by best visual observation of it. The ring shape was apparent and could tell that it was slightly oval. No central star that I could see however. I also tried using the ASIAir, ZWO mini camera, and the Star Analyzer 100 to try to see how some spectra would look. I had a little bit of trouble finding the right combination of tubes to get to a length that would focus, but by using the "Camera Adapter" tube typically used for eyepiece projection, I was eventually able to get some videos. I took videos of Polaris, Deneb, and Lyra. I did have an issue during the evening where the 32mm Plossl eyepieve fell apart and hopefully I've put it back together correctly. I am also a litte concerned about the how sharp an image I am able to get with this scope. The focus seems a little "soft" when using high magnification eyepieces. I beleieve that the scope was decently collimated, but maybe I need some one else to verify this for me. 5/25/2024 about 11:00PM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: N/A, Seeing N/A Temperature: N/A Equipment: Meade Lightbridge 16 inch Not really an observing session, I wanted to check out an equipment configuration. For the spectrographic grating, I wanted to see if I could connect the ZWO 174MM mini to the telescape with all the cable to the ASIAir and the Jackery battery. I had to use the folding card table, but when using that, all the cables seemed long enough that this should be very easy to set up. I had the camera in the eyepiece hole, connected to the ASIAir on the table, which was also plugged into the bettery on the same table. Other Log Entries <-- 2023 Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May   Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov   Dec