The weather changed beginning on Saturday, 28 November.  It was cloudy, windy, and rainy through Monday, 30 November.  But the POD stayed dry inside.  I did go out to the observatory Saturday evening, 28 November, in the hopes of seeing the International Space Station (ISS) make another pass.  As I approached the POD I took the above photograph of the setting sun and clouds.  I didn’t open the dome as the cloud cover was too extensive where the ISS would be.  At the time of the pass, there was a small hole in the clouds and I was hoping to get a photograph of the ISS.  Unfortunately, by the time I was able to see the ISS it was approaching more clouds.  The photograph didn’t work out as the sky was still somewhat bright as sunset had just occurred a few minutes earlier and the ISS was not very bright on this pass.  The clouds kept me from doing any observing.  Even the waxing gibbous moon was not visible most of the time!

Tuesday, 1 December, was clear.  I opened the observatory at 1920 MST, temp=44°F.  I took a quick look at Jupiter; 4 moons visible, two on each side of the planet’s disk.  I then slewed the telescope over to the Full Moon.  When I looked at it through the telescope I could tell it was not quite a full phase; there were some shadows visible at the limb.  The moon was VERY bright in the telescope.

I took the following image with the D70 DSLR attached at prime focus of the 8” LX200-ACF with a focal reducer.  The exposure was 1/640sec, ISO 200.

The image was cropped from the full-frame version.  If you look closely along the limb from the 12 o’clock position to the 3 o’clock position you can just make out the terminator.

The observatory was closed at 2000 MST, still 44°F.  Shortly afterwards, some high clouds started appearing.