Observing Log for Mike Durkin
9/28/25 about 8:00PM-10:30PM
Location: Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 7/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 65-75 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50 and Hutech modified Canon T3i
I started with the moon and the Seestar. However it was kind of low to the horizon
and there were some clouds. I tried some still images and some videos to see if
stacking will work.
Then I did DSLR photometry of P Cyg and CH Cyg. I had originally also wanted to
measure T CrB, but that was too low and close to some trees and buildings.
9/21/25 about 8:30PM-10:30PM
Location: Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: ??/10, Seeing ??/5
Temperature: about ?? degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50
This is being written a week after I took the image so some details are missing.
I took a 1 hour exposure of the Iris Nebula
|
|
Location: Locust Valley, NY Transparency: ??/10, Seeing ??/5 Temperature: about ?? degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 360*10s (1 hour) Processed in PixInsight and GIMP I logged this a week after taking the image, so some details are missing. |
9/20/25 about 8:30PM-10:00PM
Location: Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 6-9/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 55-65 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50
This evening I wanted to try in equitorial mode along with a 4K image.
I started with the nebula IC 4954. The description made it seem like it would be bright
and big enough for the Seestar, but the nebula really wasn't showing up well an it also
seemed a bit too small for the Seestar.
After that I took an image of the Western Veil Nebula, NGC 6960.
I was pleased that taking 4K images in equatorial mode seemed to work very well, however
I also tried using 20s subs on the Veil nebula image. I'm not sure if that was a mistake
because almost all the stars show some elongated halos. Perhaps I should have stuck with
10s subs of try to ensure that the first frame has no star trails.
Some clouds did start to move in so I ended my session there.
|
|
Location: Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 6-9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 55-65 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 60*10s (10 minutes) There is no processing for this image because I decided that the target wasn't worth it. |
|
|
Location: Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 6-9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 55-65 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 60*10s (10 minutes) Exposure: 108*20s (36 minutes) This image was taken as a 4K image in the Seestar with some processing in PixInsight and GIMP. I'm not too happy with some of the finer details after running the Seestar AI Denoise feature. I think there was a lot of star trailing and even in the staked image before processing, there was definitely some horizontal artifacts by almost every star. |
9/19-20/25 about 9:30PM-12:30AM
Location: Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 10/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 60-70 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50
Started by taking a follow up image of Pluto to verify that it moved from last week so
I could make some sort of blink comaparison. I did catch Pluto and this evening, the sky
conditions were much better than last week and I could make out Pluto much earlier in the
exposure, maybe within about 3 minutes.
Then I tried an exposure of Barnard's galaxy, however after about 11 minutes, it was barely
visible. Probably not a good target unless I have a very dark southern sky or if it is
at a higher altitude.
Then I took a 50 minute expore of the Elephant Trunk nebula. Unfortunately I did not set
the Seestar up in equitorial mode, so there was field rotation and I also started getting
dropped frames as the night went on. But I did take the image in 4K mode which seems to
have worked as expected.
|
|
|
Location: Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 10/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Details: The 2 images show Pluto, one does not show Pluto labeled and the other does. The original is an animated GIF showing a blink comparison of 2 images, one from last wee, 9/14 and the other from this date, 9/19. Click on the images and view the "original" in order to see the animations. |
|
|
Transparency: 10/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 66x10s (11 minutes) Barnard's galaxy is barely visible in the middle of the image. |
|
|
Elephant Trunk Nebula Transparency: 10/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 300x10s (50 minutes) Processed in PixInsight and GIMP. I cropped a bit because there was some color blotching that was more pronounced near the edges of the image. This images was also obtained as a 4K image in the Seestar. |
9/14/25 about 8:30PM-10:00PM
Location: Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 6-7/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 60-70 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50
Again another attempt at Pluto. THe sky was definitely less than ideal with some thin layer
of clouds to the south plus of course light pollution. However after about 15 minutes or
so, an faint object was becoming distinct where Pluto was predicted to be based on Sky
Safari. In the end my image was a total of about 25 minutes of exposure to try to maximize
the signal of the object I think is Pluto. Ideally, next week I'll try alother image and
see if the object moved.
9/12-13/25 about 10:30PM-12:00AM
Location: Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 5-9/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 60-70 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50
I first wanted to get some images of the area around WX Cyg to try to get a number of stars to
calculate a color transformation coefficient since the AAVSO star chart has a decent amount
of stars around that area that covers a color range. I would have considered one of the standard
fields from the AAVSO, but the most suitable would not have been visible until later on in the
night.
Then I wanted to see if I could image Pluto. Unfortunatly it was a bit too late for that and
it was at an altitude of 20 degrees or less and was soon going to have the view blocked by a house.
After about 10 minutes of exposure, I think Pluto might have just been starting to become visible
in the image. The estimated magnitide is about 14.5.
I also tried a quick shot of M31 and M110. M31 is definitely too large for a single frame and I didn't
spend too much time on it.
After that I tried to image the Helix Nebula which was near the meridian, although also low in the
sky. I only got about 460 seconds (7-8 minutes) and although some color and details started to form,
it still wasn't enough and clouds started to come in at that point.
|
|
|
Location: Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 5-9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 60x10s (10 minutes) |
|
|
|
|
9/12-13/25 about 10:30PM-12:00AM Location: Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 5-9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 |
9/12-13/25 about 10:30PM-12:00AM Location: Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 5-9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 46x10s (460 seconds) |
<-- 2024 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec