Observing Log for Mike Durkin


9/14/2024 about 8:30-10:0PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5
Temperature: 60-75 degrees
Equipment: Hutech modified T3i DSLR

DSLR photometry of T CrB and P Cyg.
It is almost a full moon, so the light frames of T CrB are very bright, hopefully not too much to saturate stars of interest.
This was also the first time I swapped the camera tripod head. It seemed to work pretty well.


9/13/2024 about 8:30-11:30PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 8/10, Seeing 4/5
Temperature: 60-70 degrees
Equipment: Meade 16 inch Lightbridge

I wanted to redo the collimation on the telescope to see if it would look better than the last time I tried using the Dobsonian. I went through the steps and I think last time, perhaps the secondary mirror was a bit misaligned. At the end of my steps for collimation, I also used the laser tool and everything seemed to be lined up.
After that, I looked at Vega and Altair using the 6.7mm eyepiece to check the collimation. Initially, the out of focus star rings were off center. However I would sometimes nudge the secondary a little and then the diffration rings would be more centered. It is also possible that there is some slack in the secondary and when collimating I need to tighten the screws even more. After that I decided to view a few objects, although with the moon a little more than half full, that would probably wash out some objects.
Alberio
M71 - appeared as a faint set of scattered stars. It did not really look like a globular cluster
M27, Dumbbell Nebula - Just barely seen with the 30mm eyepiece. I would not have even noticed it if I did not know it was already there.
M31 and M32 - A bit disappointing. Could only make out the core of M31, although M32 was easy to pick out. M110 however I could not see.
Saturn - the best object of the night. The rings are at a low angle of inclination but not quite edge on. The disk of the planet was a bit bright, which may have prevented me from seeing any bands. I did also see the moons, Titan, Rhea, Tethys, and Enceladus.




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