Observing Log for Mike Durkin
11/28-29/2025 about 9:30PM-2:30AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 8-9/10, Seeing 2/5
Temperature: 35-40 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50
The evening seemed a bit windy, especiallyat first and I wasn't sure if the evening was going
to be a bust, but the wind died down a little bit as the night progressed.
I wanted to either do the galaxy cluster around Perseus A or the reflection part of the
Flaming Star Nebula. After polar alignment, the sky seemd to be set up better for the
nebula.
After struggling a little with the wind and not being happy with the elongated stars for the
first attempts, I took some images and videos of the moon. I also looked a little bit at
Saturn. I could just barely make out the rings in the image and after decreasing the exposure
or gain to cut down the brightness.
After that I decided to stick with the Flaming Star nebula despite the wind. I would hope that
over the long run any defects due to the wind would be stacked out. I looked at the final image
and saw there was some jumping around of the stars, which did get smoothed over a little bit, but
not entirely. I also think I should have used the nebula filter to make the red stand out a little
better, although I don't know if that would decrease the blue reflection part too much.
After that, just for fun I tried to quickly image M42 and M43. They were much brighter than I
expected. The core and Trapezium section were effectively overexposed, even with the 10s subframes.
Then I also did some very quick images of the Monkey Head Nebula and part of the Seagull Nebula I
was always interested in imaging. Both of those were a bit too faint and would require much more time
to image, although the Monkey Head seemed a litle brighter.
I didtry to image everything in 4K mode. I was not entirely happy with the tracking. Again, I don't know
if it is a problem with polar alignment or is the tracking motion of my S50 just not steady enough? I also
missed using the larger adapter screw on the bottom of the Seestar to the tripod wedge, although I
doubt that would have had much impact on the elongated stars.
|
|
11/28-29/2025 about 9:30PM-2:30AM Long Island, NY Transparency: 8-9/10, Seeing 2/5 Temperature: 35-40 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 720*10s (2 hours) Processed in PixInsight and GIMP The night was very windy, so some of the light frames had significant star trails |
11/23/2025 about 6:30-8:30PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 6-7/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: 35-45 degrees
Equipment: Hutech modified Canon T3i DSLR
DSLR photometry of P Cyg and CH Cyg.
I also thought of doing δ Cep, but I eventually remembered that there is a slightly
dimmer star right next to it and it would be blended in my DSLR image.
After that I thought of doing SU Cas or γ Cas, but there was too much scattered
clouds, so I wrapped it up.
<-- 2024 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec