Wednesday evening’s forecast had initially called for monsoon storms in the area.  But as sunset approached, it was evident that the forecast was wrong.  The skies were clear!  I opened up the POD at 1850 MST.  This was the first clear night since “first light” 8 days ago!  While waiting for darkness, I added a few things to the POD.  I put small plastic caps on the exposed bolts on the wall:

The paperclip hook supports the dimmer for the red rope light:

I also added a clip to the unused bracket holes on the primary dome:

The clips can hold charts and observing plans.

Here you can see the inside of the POD with the red rope light turned on:

Beginning shortly after sunset I did some lunar photography with my Nikon D70 DSLR on the 8” LX200-ACF.  Here are a few of the images.  All images were processed in Apple’s Aperture software and some were stacked using Lynkeos. This one was taken at prime focus, 1/125 sec, ISO 400:

Here are several images at prime focus with a 2X Barlow Lens.  Exposures were 1/40 sec, ISO 1250.

The moon was fairly low in the sky so the seeing was not too steady and the images were blurring out somewhat.

I tried some eyepiece projection photography with a 9.7mm eyepiece.  The best results were with an exposure of 1/10 sec, ISO 1250.

I then spent some time observing the moon with various eyepieces.  Due to its low altitude and hence, the atmospheric turbulence, there were times that the sunlight on its surface seemed to “sparkle”.  It was a neat visual effect.

At 2030 MST, the temperature in the POD was 77°F.  Even with the moon at First Quarter, the Milky Way was very distinct.

At this point I decided to do a re-alignment of the AutoStar.  My initial alignment before sunset was only approximate and I wanted more tracking accuracy for the rest of the night.  As the telescope slewed to its first alignment star, it slewed nearly to the zenith and the star diagonal hit the base.  This was due to the added length from the micro-focuser.  I could have configured the AutoStar to have an upper slew limit but I decided that I would remove the micro-focuser.  I just hadn’t been using it that much so won’t miss it.

Next up was Jupiter, low in the southeast.  It was a difficult object to photograph.  I took several photographs at prime focus with the 2X Barlow Lens at 1/60 sec, ISO 1600.  Only a few were good enough to try stacking.  Here’s the result:

You can see some cloud bands and near the center is the (blurry) shadow of the moon Ganymede.

I then spent the rest of the night just doing some visual work.  I watched Jupiter for a long time.  There were multiple “shadow transits” underway.  At one time, three Galilean moon shadows were visible on the planet’s disk.  And over a short period of time, I watched a moon separate from the limb of the planet.  It was exciting to see the motion so evident!

As the moon was now setting, I began to look at some DSOs.  I decided to just view at some old favorites tonight.  I used several eyepieces, including a 2” 50mm and a 2” 40mm eyepiece, with and without a focal reducer.  Seeing M31 and both its companion galaxies in the same field of view was neat.  Both star clusters of the Double Cluster were in the same FOV.

Finally at 2340 MST, with the POD temperature at 75°F, I closed up the POD.  Since I had not expected to be able to observe that night, I was tired from the day’s activities. 

Having a permanent observatory is wonderful!  Thanks to Wayne Parker and the SkyShed POD Team!!!  I'm looking forward to being in my POD a lot for many many years to come!