Logbook Sketches

Introduction

Right from the very beginning in October 2009, when I brought the LX10 home and set it up for the first time in my backyard, I have kept a hand written journal about all my astronomy activities.  Observations, OAOG meeting notes, hand calculations and observations from my telescope building projects, basically everthing that I've done has been written down.  I was originally going to post all that material here, but quickly found it was simply too much.  Instead I've decided to post simply my observation sketchs, which for the most part sums up the outcome of my observation sessions.  If you have any questions about my sketchs, please feel free to contact me.

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 3/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• My first real observation session with the new (used) LX10

M42: 40mm Meade 5k Plossl + no filters	M42: 26mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik OIII	M42: 10mm Televue Radian + Astronomik OIII

• CDS forecast:  80% clear, 3/5 transparency, 1/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Astroday was a disappointment due to seeing conditions (cloud), but it cleared up once I was home so I setup in backyard
• I was unhappy with quality of view in LX10 so I made my first attempt at star collimation, which turned out great!
• First time viewing Saturn through a telescope...yeah!

Saturn:  4mm Televue Radian + no filters

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 2/5-3/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wege, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Finally getting the knack of polar aligning my LX10 + wedge setup
• Tried different colour filters on Mars: 23a, 25a, 21 (no better); 47h (a little better); Baader Moon & Sky (whoah, much better, see polar cap & bluish clouds); 82b, 80a (brought out contrast between light and dark regions
• Also tried colour filters on Saturn:  82b, 80a, 47h, M&S, 23a, 25a, 21 (no noticeable improvement)

Mars:  6.7mm Meade UWA + Baader M&S	Mars:  6.7mm Meade UWA + #80a	Saturn:  6.7mm Meade UWA + no filter

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 3/5 transparency, 2/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Tried a number of filters more systematically on planets:  Orion Mars, CC20M, CC40M, 81A, 81B, 85, variable polarizer
• On Venus 81B & polarizer best, on Mars CC20M best followed by 81B, on Saturn 85 best

Venus:  6.7mm Meade UWA + variable polarizer	Mars:  6.7mm Meade UWA + CC20M	Saturn:  6.7mm Meade UWA + no filter

• CDS forecast (guess):  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 3/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Long session tonight, 10pm to 5am (slept between 12am & 3am), wife shakes her head
• While aligning scope, decl. adjust failed and scope went crash!  Gah!  Nothing damaged luckily.
• Tried a number of filters on Jupiter:  47h, 82b, 11h, 8, 23a, M&S, 82a, 86, 81b, cc20m, cc30m, cc40m; M&S best, followed by cc20m, 47h, 86

M57:  6.7mm Meade UWA + Astronomik UHC	Jupiter:  10mm Televue Radian + M&S

• CDS forecast (guess):  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 3/5 seeing
• ED80 APO on M1 alt-az mount, beach near Sheenboro, PQ
• First full night of observing from beach at cottage - wow, dark skies!
• Very very happy with what I was able to see with only a 80mm scope & alt-az mount

M7: 6.7mm Meade UWA + no filter	M62: 6.7mm Meade UWA & 26mm Meade 5k Plossl+ no filter	M8: 6.7mm Meade UWA + no filter
M8:  10mm Televue Radian + Astronomik OIII

• CDS forecast (guess):  100% clear, 3/5 transparency, 4/5 seeing
• ED80 APO on M1 alt-az mount, beach near Sheenboro, PQ
• An even more productive night of observing from beach at cottage - 9pm to 4am non-stop!
• Bugs very bad, but okay when stayed close to Thermacell
• Around 3:30am heard something big rustling in bushes, instinct told me it was a bear, nearly wet pants, sang loudly for remainder of evening!...in the end was probably a skunk

Venus: 6.7mm Meade UWA + variable polarizer	Veil Neb:  40mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik UHC	N.Amer + Pelican Neb:  40mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik UHC
M17:  6.7mm Meade UWA + Astronomic UHC	Jupiter:  2-4mm Televue Nagler Zoom + M&S	Moon:  6.7mm Meade UWA + no filter

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 3/5 to 4/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Looked for objects I viewed at cottage, view not as good with 8" in town (eg. M8)
• Caught Rock Malin broadcast on NSN for first time...Mallincam a fascinating device!  Rock was viewing M27 so I went out and viewed it myself for comparison

M27: 6.7mm Meade UWA + Astronomik OIII	unknown near 9 Vulpecula: 26mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik OIII	Jupiter:  6.7mm Meade UWA + #85

• CDS forecast (guess):  100% clear, 2/5 transparency, 2/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, beach near Sheenboro, PQ
• Plan to revisit all the objects I viewed with ED80 while on vacation in early July
• Corrector plate fogged up before getting to galaxies + moon up

M8: 40mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik OIII	M17:  26mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik OIII

• CDS forecast (guess):  100 to 80% clear, 4/5 to 2/5 transparency, 3/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, beach near Sheenboro, PQ
• Warmer than last night (no fogging) + a bit more time before moon up
• Again didn't get great galaxy views as moon starting to come up + sky conditions deteriorated

M20:  26mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik OIII	M16:  40mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik OIII	W. Veil Neb:  40mm Meade 5k Plossl + Astronomik OIII

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 3/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on fork mount + wedge, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Nice sunny Saturday, so set up to look at sun (Baader AstroSolar Safety Film)
• Tried a number of filter combinations:  H-beta, #29, Baader UHC-S + #29, Astronomik OIII, LPS-P2 + #29; H-beta & OIII actually quite nice image, UHC-S + #29 gave nice edge detail on sun spots

Sun: 26mm Meade 5k Plossl & 10mm Televue Radian + UHC-S + #29

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 3/5 to 4/5 transparency, 4/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on Orion Atlas EQ-G (PC control), backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Best sky conditions in months!  Plan for long night session
• Drunk neighbour came over around 1:30am, he was very impressed by view of Jupiter & its moons
• Recorded many Moon & Jupiter netcam images as-well-as lots of visual observing

Jupiter: 6.7mm Meade UWA + no filter

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 4/5 transparency (by midnight was 1/5), 2/5 seeing
• Naked eye, neigbour's backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Nice night, started out very clear but gradually a thin layer of high altitude cloud rolled in
• ~9:30pm saw a nice lunar halo and lunar dogs (never seen this before!)
• ~12:00am saw a very bright lunar corona
• had planned to image moon later in evening, but gradually thickening clouds made it impossible

Lunar halo & dogs: naked eye

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 3/5 transparency, 4/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on Orion Atlas EQ-G (hand paddle), backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Plan was to view Jupiter (very nice), Comet Hartley (never found), and a shopping list of clusters (found most)
• Very happy with Atlas mount GOTO, but notice that good polar alignment goes a long way to improving GOTO accuracy even with a 3-star calibration

Jupiter: 6.7mm Meade UWA + no filter	M42:  32mm Meade 5k Plossl & 10mm Televue Radian + Astronomik OIII

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 3/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 on Orion Atlas EQ-G (hand paddle), backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Plan for Moon closeup imaging, Comet Hartley (again never found), and Jupiter
• Jupiter was not as good as on Oct. 12th, had to back off to longer f.l. eyepiece to get a sharp image (consistent with forecasted seeing)

Jupiter: 32mm Meade 5k Plossl + 2x Barlow + no filter

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 4/5 transparency, 4/5 seeing
• 8" LX10 & ED80 on Orion Atlas EQ-G (hand paddle), backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Excellent conditions, had left setup outside from previous night due to forecast
• Began evening viewing Jupiter, then to bed, then up at 4:30am to image Moon, and view objects around Orion & Canis Major
• Found lots of open clusters, M106 (galaxy), and the view of M42 was amazing!  I had trouble sketching it due to the amount of detail that was visible
• Packed up around 7am, wife and kids already up for school bus!  heh heh (nervous laughter)

Jupiter: 10mm Televue Radian + Baader M&S	M42:  6.7mm Meade UWA + Astronomik OIII

• CDS forecast:  100% clear, 2/5 transparency, 2/5 seeing
• Celestron Skymaster 15x70 binoculars on camera tripod, backyard in Ottawa, ON
• Objective is to find comet Hartley before it is gone
• Sky conditions clear but poor transparency, limiting VM ~ 3.0 (can be 4.0 to 4.5 on a good night)
• It took me a while, comparing to various maps, but I think I found it!  Not very impressive though, a faint fuzzy dot.

comet Hartley (?): 15x70 binoculars

Copyrights to all content from the webpages hosted here belongs to Jim Thompson. Nov. 2009.