Observing Log for Mike Durkin
10/12/2008 roughly noon
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 8/10, Seeing ?/5
Temperature: about 60 degrees
Equipment: Coronado Hydrogen Alpha PST, Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC
Some one on the club mailing list mentioned that there was a sunspot now visible on the sun,
so I decided to see how it would look in the PST.
Using the white light filter on my SCT, I was easily able to make out one sunspot area,
which I found out was identified as Sunspot 1005. There were at least 2 small spots making
up the group.
I used my webcam to take the following pictures through the PST:
 Sunspot 1005, Solar Cycle 24 Telescope: Coronado Hydrogen Alpha PST Camera: Toucam 840K Image details: video file 120 seconds long. Each frame was 1/1000 of a second. 500 frames stacked and processed in Registax and Photoshop. |
 Prominence Telescope: Coronado Hydrogen Alpha PST Camera: Toucam 840K Image details: original video 120 seconds. Each frame 1/250 of a second. 128 frames stacked and processed in Registax and Photoshop. |
10/11/2008 7:00-9:00PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 7/10, Seeing 2/5
Temperature: about 60 degrees
Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 PEC
So I set up my telescope a little early so I could eat a little first. However, since Venus
was just about to set, I tried to observe that for a few minutes. At 17mm, I was not able
to exactly make out the phase,although it seemed nearly full. There was also significant
atmostpheric dispersion.
After I ate, I came back out and there was quite a bit of dew starting to form on some
of my equipment. I took a quick look at Jupiter. I was able to easily see 3 moons close to
each other on one side of the planet, and 2 of the belts, but the seeing was not too good.
I also spent quite a lot of time try to see if I could drift align. By the end of the
night, I don't think that I could say that I have the knack of it yet.
At some point Lou went to his garage and tirned the light on. I really need to find out
if I can get those turned off on dark nights.
I finished the evening looking at the moon. I noticed that at the polar region there was
a crater inside a crater, so I pulled out the webcam and tried to image it.
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Telescope: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC Camera: Toucam 840K Image details: about 300 frames stacked Each frame, 1/500 of a second. Stacked and aligned using Registax. |
While breaking down, I looked through the scope and either the corrector or the primary mirror looked very dirty when using the light of the moon. Hopefully it is only the corrector, which I should probably clean soon.
10/4/2008 8:00-10:00PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 5/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 50-60 degrees
Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 PEC
Once again Lou had the light by the garage on. I really need to see if I can get him to
turn it off or tell me how. Also Tom's kids were home and there were a little more
lights on in the house than normal, which made it harder to get dark adapted.
Almost right after I got the scope set up, it started getting cloudy. Before
things got really cloudy, I decided to see if I could split Polaris, since it is
supposed to have a companion. I was able to see a small, dim, blue companion to
Polaris, best seen with the 17mm eyepiece. I could even make it out
with Rich's 40mm, 2 inch eyepiece. Polaris itself was bright
and I was wondering if my colimation was off based on the way it looked.
I had a quick look at Jupiter as well, however the clouds were too thick and the
seeing was not good for it's location in the sky.
I also looked a little around Cassiopeia before I packed it in for the night,
and of course it started clearing a little as soon as I was packing.
10/4/2008 1:00PM-4:00PM
Cradle of Aviation Museum
Garden City, NY
Transparency: 7/10, Seeing: ?/5
Temperature: about 70 degrees
Equipment: Coronado Hydrogen Alpha PST
Astronomy Day at the Cradle of Aviation. I brought my PST to help out the club.
So I set up the PST next to the club Hydrogen Alpha and an SCT with a white light filter.
I had a couple of people look through the scope, but the club scope had a better view, so
I usually tried to steer them that way. This was also the first time I was a bit
afraid of letting some of the pulic use my equiment, since a couple of kids were handling
the scopes a little rough, and I thought one parent was about to touch the front of the
Hydrogen Alpha scope.
There were a couple of faint prominences and one noticable bright spot (a plage?).
There we no features visible with the white light filter at the same locations.
Actually I could not see any featurs at all with the white light filters.
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