Observing Log for Mike Durkin
8/23/2025 about 8:00-10:30PM
Jones Beach Boardwalk, NY
Transparency: 7-10/10, Seeing 2/5
Temperature: about 60-75 degrees
Equipment: Orion XT10 Dobsonian
Tere was a Music Under the Stars even last night that was postponed until tonight so
I was able to volunteer tonight.
I manned the 10 inch Orion XT10 along with Tom L. from AOS. We started with looking
at Vega since it was the first star to be visible after sunset. I felt that Vega
wasn;t interesting enough, so shortly after that I switched to &epislon; Lyra, aka
the double-double. We weren't able to fully split into the individual components using
an 18mm eyepiece. Tom did have an eyepiece which gave higher magnification, but the
view was way too unsteady to try to fully split the doubles.
After that we looked at Antares. The people coming to observe seemed to find that
a little more interesting than Vega or ε Lyra. People seemed to like
the red color and even the twinkling that caused multiple colors to be visible.
Then finally we showed people Saturn, which rose a little late so it was low in the
horizon. The rings were basically edge-on and one mooned seemed to be visible, which
I think was Titan.
8/22-23/2025 about 10:00PM-3:00AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5
Temperature: about 55-65 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50
I wanted to do some more testing of the Seestar this evening.
After doing another level calibration, I tried taking some images of T CrB with the
Seestar to see if this might work for photometry. I'll have to process at a later time
to see if this can work.
Then I tried doing a 4K image of globular cluster M13, but I didn't like the way the
image came out. There seemed to be some trailling that detracted from the image.
After I switched back to the normal resolution, then the stars were more circular
and the image looked more pleasing.
After that I switched to equitorial mode and tried to do a longer exposure of the Cave
Nebula. I had hoped that in equitorial mode that I could do 20s or longer sub exposured.
However I was only keeping less that 30% of the exposures. When I switched back to
10s subs, then basically I was keeping 100% of the subframes.
And before finishing off I took a shortish (10-12 minute) image of the galaxy M33, mostly
to see how it would be framed in the Seestar's field of view. The framing was nice, so
later this year hopefully I can devote a significant amount of time to this galaxy. One
other note though is that I did lose about 10% of the sub frames of M33, which is still
pretty good, but surprising since I had 100% of sub frames on the Cave Nebula, and that
was a much longer total exposure.
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8/22-23/2025 about 10:00PM-3:00AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5 Temperature: about 55-65 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: about 12 minutes total with 10s subs Processing: PixInsight and GIMP |
8/16-17/2025 about 8:000PM-12:30AM
Custer Institute/Sue Rose Observatory
Transparency: 5-8/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 60-70 degrees
Equipment: Seestar S50, 14 inch SCT, possible Meade ETX, large Dobsonian
Another trip out to the relative's house and to Custer after that.
There was a music group playing there that night. It seemed to be mostly instrumental
mood music, so fortunately the sound wasn't a disturbance, although the lights when they
were breaking down did interfere a little bit.
I wanted to test out the Seestar using equitorial mode and 4K images. Getting set up
in equitorial mode seemed simple enough, although it did not seem to help the rejection
rate of frames like I had hoped. I had inititally started to image western part of the
Veil Nebula, but there were too many clouds eventually so I stopped. Later on I did try
imaging the Deer Lick Galaxy group along with Stephan's Quintet. Using 20s subs, I
would estimate that over half were rejected. I think I would get a lower rejection
rate if I used 10s subs. I had also tried to do a 4K picture, but for whatever reason
all that seemed to do is show trailling stars for about 5-6 straight images and it never
started accumulating, so aybe I was doing something wrong for 4K?
During the evening also looked a bit through the 14 inch scope in the Sue Rose
Observatory. I was Alberio and Saturn, although at other ties I think it was pointed
to M57, the Ring Nebula and M27, the Dumbell Nebula.
I also had to man what I am pretty sure was a Meade ETX scope while one of the Custer
staff had to help out with the concert. The alignment was off by a bit so plugging
in targets into the hand controller did not center them in the eyepiece view. I did
settle in on what I think was the globular cluster M92 in Hercules. I showed that
of to the public for roughly an hour.
Some one there also had a large Dobsonian and was showing Alcor and Mizar.
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Deer Lick galaxy and Stephan's Quintet 8/16-17/2025 about 8:000PM-12:30AM Custer Institute/Sue Rose Observatory Transparency: 5-8/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Seestar S50 Exposure: 36 minutes Processed using AI Denoise in the Seestar app and with GIMP. |
8/15/2025 about 10:30PM-11:30PM
Location: Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 1-9/10, Seeing ??/5
Temperature: about 65-75 degrees
Equipment: ZWO Seestar S50
I was planning to test out the latest Seestar firmware update that would allow for
equitorial mode and 4K images. However clouds moved in and it was almost totally overcast
soon after I setup the tripod, so all I got to do was update the firmware.
8/9/2025 about 9:00PM-12:00AM
Custer Institute/Sue Rose Observatory
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5
Temperature: 55-65 degrees
Equipment: 14 inch SCT, 10x50 binoculars, unknown binoculars
Since visiting a relative's new house near Riverhead, NY, also decided to visit Custer
since it is not much futher.
I had also brought my Seestar S50 to try to test out using equitorial mode, but by the
time we got to Custer it was too dark.
When we did get to Custer, saw Bill B. and Steve from AOS were set up imaging the
Crescent Nebula and the Veil Nebula.
Bill C. was manning the 14 inch telescope in the Sue Rose Observatory (SRO). Looked at the moon
there which is about a day past full, so there was a small slice near the western edge where
there was some craters to see.
Some one from Custer had a set of large binoculars set up and was looking at Alcor and
Mizar in UMa. In the binoculars it was pretty easy to see the companion to Mizar, which
according to Sky Safari has a separation of only about 0.7".
After most of the public had left Bill B. switched the target in the SRO to Saturn.
Initially he tried getting the image using the camera that was originally attached to the
finder scope, but the image on the screen didn't look too good so he switched back to
just viewing through the eyepiece. The view was nice with the rings almost edge on and
one or two moons visible, one of which is almost certainly Titan.
Before leaving, I had by 10x50 binoculars and took a quick look at M31 from the parking
lot. That view was not great since it was being drowned out by the moon.
8/8-9/2025 about 10:30PM-12:30AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5
Temperature: 55-65 degrees
Equipment: Hutech modified Canon T3i
A little cool after a couple of very hot weeks.
DSLR photometry of T CrB and P Cyg. A full moon was also in the sky.
One other note, I forgot to do the flat-darks on T CrB, so I will try
to use the same set of flat darks for both stars since the flat exposure time
was 1/40s for both of them.
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