Log Books

[Matt Scunthorpe]

While reading through the copy of Sky At Night intoduction to Astronomy that i was ripped off bought at W H Smith the other day, they cover log books, and have a look at Patrick Moores and an amateurs log book, and some of the pros for keeping them, with sketches and observations you make. This struck me as a good idea and im going to go for it, see how i get on.

Does anyone here keep a record like this, and why did you start etc?

And for the magazine, at £7.99 its a bit pricy imo (i wouldnt of bought it if i'd of noticed) but it is actually really good. Worth a read, goes through what you can see, star hopping to targets including M31 etc, goes through mounts, scopes and eyepeices., the distances in space, and more technical stuff as well. it Is very imfortmative, so i may have to change my opinion on the pricing

[username]

I have a small notebook which I write notes in and before I go out I I stencil around a jar lid a few times to make an eyepiece template so I can make some sketches. The sketches are nothing special - they're more to confirm what I was looking at using the ocular view in Stellarium. As I have no skill in actually drawing I find the position of nearby stars and the relative size of things in the eyepiece helps when confirming in Stellarium.

I try to make sure I make a note of how I found the objects too as i don't have goto which will hopefully be of use when I go back to them

[Tyr]

Yes I do as well, I'm sure it's a common habit, I started because I wanted a record of what I'd seen. This has come in handy as after a year the things I'd seen or tried and failed to see during my first season owning a scope were coming back into view so I could read back over my notes and see if I could find the stuff I'd missed before. As well as being reminded of a few things I'd forgotten about.

I have a small notebook which I write notes in and before I go out I I stencil around a jar lid a few times to make an eyepiece template so I can make some sketches. The sketches are nothing special - they're more to confirm what I was looking at using the ocular view in Stellarium. As I have no skill in actually drawing I find the position of nearby stars and the relative size of things in the eyepiece helps when confirming in Stellarium.

I try to make sure I make a note of how I found the objects too as i don't have goto which will hopefully be of use when I go back to them

I've just started doing some basic sketches for the same reason. Good tip on writing some notes on how you located the object, I'll try and do that myself when I find something new to me.

Things I try and record for the session are location (normally the same), what scope (or bins) I'm using, session times and date and a few things about the sky condition.

Then for each object (sometimes just if new) what eyepieces and maybe filters I found most effective and how the view compares to previous observations of the same object or similar.

I make some notes as I go but mostly when I get inside after the session while it's all still fresh. I should probably note a little more as I go.

It's a good idea to have a watch on and the notebook close by as if you see something moving fast a bright you can note down sky location, and time then check afterwards what it was bright satellites are a good example.

It's also handy if you want to write an observing report for others and there are some other people posting really good reads in the observing reports section. I find it great for ideas of things I might want to try and find myself.

Tyr

[Mike73]

I think that taking notes and making a quick sketch is the best way to go.

I've attached a pdf which should give you a good start for your notes and sketches.

I just make brief notes in the field which is almost shorthand and I doubt anyone apart from me would understand them but they are good enough to copy out neatly the next day. Take a look at my blog for ideas of what notes I take.

Sketch only what you see through the EP, its tempting to 'tidy' it up the next day by adding or rubbing bits out but its best left alone imo. it doesn't have to be a master piece but just by jotting down asterisms in an object can really help you understand your written notes at a later date.

LogSheetAstroA4_Right.pdf

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Thanks for that PDF mike, that seems a good way to go i think, how do you work out the FOV, is this on the eyepeice?

[Mike73]

No worries Matt, all you need now is a couple pencils and a clip board.

True field of view (what you see through your eyepiece) is easy to work out.

Example of my 12" 1500mm scope with a 26mm 82˚ EP -

1500mm (focal length of scope) divided by EP size 26mm = 57.69

82˚ divided by 57.69 = 1.42˚ TFoV

[Qualia]

Good stuff, Mike and thank you for the PDF. I agree with what you say about the sketches. It really is better to keep them as they are in the logbooks and not bother with tidying up. However , I have found that when I wish to include a given sketch in my blog, it seems a better idea for me to tidy the field. Often there are pencil smudges, Xs where I placed a wrong star, a slip of hand which has made a faintish star into a sun and for the sake of verisimilitude, but more importantly, to aid the reader if they wish to hunt out the same object, I try to tidy up the sketch and to the best of my ability get the view that my eye saw.

[Mike73]

Good stuff, Mike and thank you for the PDF. I agree with what you say about the sketches. It really is better to keep them as they are in the logbooks and not bother with tidying up. However , I have found that when I wish to include a given sketch in my blog, it seems a better idea for me to tidy the field. Often there are pencil smudges, Xs where I placed a wrong star, a slip of hand which has made a faintish star into a sun and for the sake of verisimilitude, but more importantly, to aid the reader if they wish to hunt out the same object, I try to tidy up the sketch and to the best of my ability get the view that my eye saw.

Yep that was kinda what I meant, should of made myself clearer.

I'm so messy when sketching its unbelievable!

[Nibor]

I think that taking notes and making a quick sketch is the best way to go.

I've attached a pdf which should give you a good start for your notes and sketches.

I just make brief notes in the field which is almost shorthand and I doubt anyone apart from me would understand them but they are good enough to copy out neatly the next day. Take a look at my blog for ideas of what notes I take.

Sketch only what you see through the EP, its tempting to 'tidy' it up the next day by adding or rubbing bits out but its best left alone imo. it doesn't have to be a master piece but just by jotting down asterisms in an object can really help you understand your written notes at a later date.

Thanks for the log sheet PDF - I have been looking to start keeping an observing record and this may be the way forward.

Out of interest is there a particular reason why it is useful to have two sketch circles?

I had a look at your blog and the white pastel on black paper is very effective. It made me wonder if the sketching circles on the PDF would benefit from being black !!??

[Mike73]

Out of interest is there a particular reason why it is useful to have two sketch circles?

You may want to sketch the same object but at different magnifications e.g., M42 at low power and the Trapezium at high power.

It made me wonder if the sketching circles on the PDF would benefit from being black !!??

Its easier and cheaper to print off black on white then either scan or take a photo of the completed sketch then invert it in a image editor but there maybe a template like you mention on the net somewhere?

[Nibor]

Mike,

Many thanks for your replies.

Robin

[PaulABS]

Matt,

Here's a very good article from Sky & Telescope on logbooks:

http://media.skytonight.com/documents/200707082086.pdf

:grin:

Paul.

[Islander]

You might find this site useful too

http://www.astronomylogs.com/pages/logpages.html

[Hanuman]

Some interesting thoughts above. I'm a newbie and my thoughts on how I do this chop and change. First couple of weeks I went A4 ringbinder using Mike73's log sheets. I'm now using a hard bound A4 page a day diary which looks good but there's a lot of gaps and blank days. I'm scrawling notes on log sheets or blank paper while observing and then writing up in the book afterwards. The writing up is a good way to review what I've seen but is confounded by the mess of my handwriting.

I've just come across Sky Safari on the iPad and am attracted by the fact that you can save items to an observation list.

I've set up one list as a wish list for future planning.

Next session I intent to use it to plan the session and then as I observe add items to a observation list dated for that night. You can add free-form text and have the iPad insert date and time as you go.

You can export this as a CSV.

One downside might be that observations are locked into an app or data gets lost.

I was thinking of still writing up but with the help of a bit of cut and paste from the exported CSV. I'm thinking maybe a blog.

Combining scans of sketches, photos would enhance it.

Also revisiting last nights observations in Sky Safari helped me understand the patterns of stars I was seeing through the scope. If I set up the fov in the app correctly, I should be able to see what I could see through the scope. Screenshots from that and/or other apps like Moon could accompany the writing. Beauty is that it's not a big deal to pull all those bits of media together quickly and nearly. When I get into imaging, I can add some of that to.

Just my thoughts on how I might do this. Interested I hear if others have gone down a similar route.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Ive been using an A5 hard back spiral notebook at the moment, i sketch what i can see at the top half of the page, then write some notes about what i can see, the viewing conditions, like how clear is it, is the night still quite light or is it dark. That works for me at the moment, i have the PDF saved, i just didnt want something clipboard size out at the moment. In this magazine i'm reading, it says;

'you can look at an object for 20minutes, but you may not of really observed it'

I havent really found many DSO as i struggle to find them and my star hopping skills are ... yeah, i'm on 5/110 messiers , but by taking the notes, i feel like im really getting a good luck at what im viewing.