Observing Log for Mike Durkin
12/29/2007 9:00PM-12:00AM
College Point, NY
Transparency: 8/10, Seeing: 5/10
Temperature: about 35-45 degrees
Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 PEC
I went to my parent's place in College Point to try to see Mars while there is still good viewing for it. First I tried collimating the scope since it has been a couple of years since the last time I did so. It took me about 30 minutes to finish this and even then I wasn't very happy with the collimation, but it was probably "good enough".
After that I went to observe Mars. I did most of my observing with the 17mm(118x) and 7.4mm(270x) eyepieces. I was able to clearly see Mare Cimmerium, Mare Tyrrhenum, and Mare Sirenum. I was also eventually able to see Syrtis Major as it rotated into view. I was also able to make out some other dark features on the disk in between moments of decent seeing. These may have been the Propontis Complex and/or the Hyblaeus Extention.
I then started using the webcam to start taking some AVI files in order to use with Registax. I alternated between using the webcam directly with the telescope, and also using a 2x Barlow lens. Below are the images I obtained with Registax and the Barlow lens.
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 Telescope: Ultima 8 PEC Camera: ToUcam Pro II Location: College Point, NY Date: 12/29/2007 Details: 360 frames stacked, each about 1/500th of a second. Also used a a Barlow 2x lens. Images processed with Registax. |
 Telescope: Ultima 8 PEC Camera: ToUcam Pro II Location: College Point, NY Date: 12/29/2007 Details: 58 frames stacked, each about 1/500th of a second. Also used a a Barlow 2x lens. Images processed with Registax. |
 Telescope: Ultima 8 PEC Camera: ToUcam Pro II Location: College Point, NY Date: 12/29/2007 Details: 84 frames stacked, each about 1/500th of a second. Also used a a Barlow 2x lens. Images processed with Registax. |
And here is an animation of all the images put together that shows the rotation:
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