Observing Log for Mike Durkin 11/30/2007 7:30PM-9:30PM Columbia University Transparency: 8/10, Seeing: 3/5 Temperature: about 30-40 degrees Equipment: various Columbia was bi-weekly astro meetups and this was the first time I went to one. It started off with a talk indoors by one of their professors regarding colliding galaxies. Interesting, but a bit low level. After that I went to the roof where they had a 12 inch Dob outside, and two SCTs inside domes. I don't know the exact sized of the SCTs, but I would esitmate that one was 10 or 12 inches and the other was at least 12 inches. I spent most of the time in the smaller dome since I figured that most of the crowd would go to the larger dome/scope. The volunteer on the scope mainly focused on Mars, which was just a big orange blob, I could not make out any surface detail. I also had the Pleiades, which is too big for a telescope, so we only a few of the dimmer stars within the cluster. I would also say that the collimation of the scope way off. The shadow of the central obstruction was off center on stars that were out of focus. Before I left, I took a look at M42, the Orion Nebula in the 12 inch Dob. I was able to make out the central nebulocity around the Trapezium, however the light pollution washed out the fainter outter portions. 11/16/2007 7:30-10:30PM East Northport, NY Transparency: 9/10, seeing: 3/5 Temperature: about 40 degrees Equipment: 127mm Mak, 10x50 binoculars Linda from the AOS was asked to set up an outreach program out in East Notherport. A few AOS members, including myself went there to help. First I had the moon in my 127mm Mak with a 30mm eyepiece (51x). I also pointed out comet 17P/Holmes. I was visible naked eye and looked impressive in my 10x50 binoculars. I think it may be 20-30 arcminutes in size now. I also observed it in the Mak at 30mm(51x). I also looked at M15 in Perseus, however it was a little disppointing in the small scope. Before I left I tried to find some clusters in Cassiopeia, however I ended up looking at the Double Cluster (NGC 884 and 869) in Perseus. It looked pretty good at 30mm(51x), although it was a little big for the field of view. 11/7/2007 about 10:30PM Old Westbury, NY Transparency: 9/10, seeing: ??/10 about 50-60 degrees 10x50 binoculars ALSI was hosting a talk by Bro. Guy Consolmagno and Dan Davis at NYIT in Old Westbury. After the talk Prof. Davis pointed out comet 17P/Holmes, which was clearly visible naked eye. When I got back to my car, I took out my 10x50 binoculars to look at it. The comet looked significantly larger than when I saw it last week. I would estimate it's size at 20-30 arc minutes. The comet appeared mostly circular, and one part of it may have been a little bit brighter than the rest, but it was hard to tell since the binoculars weren't steady enough to confirm. Other Log Entries <-- 2006 Jan  Feb   Mar   Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov   Dec  2008 -->