16 June.  During my last session in the observatory, there were lots of 1" long beetles (of some kind, at least, I thought they were beetles).  I removed many of them that night.  During the day, I applied some appropriate bug spray inside and outside.  And the winds came up; gusts to 31 MPH.  Didn’t do any observing that night.

17 June.  I did some experimenting with the Milky Way panorama images that I took on the previous session.  I was able to stitch them together but the LX200 OTA was too much a distraction.  I will retake the images once the moon is not interfering and I'll be certain to reposition the camera to avoid the OTA obstruction.  In the evening, I opened the observatory at 1840 MST, temp=104°F (max had been 113°F).  At 1905 MST, I observed Venus and then the moon in the 26mm eyepiece.  Beginning at 1920 MST, I did some lunar observing with the 26mm, 15mm, 9.7mm, and 5.5mm eyepieces.  I then viewed the moon with the 5.5mm eyepiece + 3X TeleXtender (1091X); the view was actually pretty good at this high magnification.  I then tried the 5.5mm + 3X TX + 2X Barlow Lens (2192X); The view was very faint and the seeing was not good enough for this extreme magnification.  I then used the 9.7mm eyepiece with the combined 3X TX + 2X BL (1237X); still too much magnification.  However, the 15mm + 3X TX + 2X BL (800X) yielded some nice views even though this magnification was twice the theoretical maximum magnification for an 8” telescope (400X).

Beginning at 1947 MST, I did some lunar astrophotography with the Nikon D70 DSLR at prime focus of the Meade 8” LX200-ACF.  The image at the top of the page is a 1/250sec, ISO 500, exposure.  I then did some prime focus + 3X TeleXtender imaging; this image was done using the “hat trick” method at ISO 200:

I then did some extreme magnification imaging of some prominent craters in the view above with the camera at prime focus + 2X Barlow Lens + 3X TeleXtender, “hat trick”, ISO 800:

I was pleased with these results.  At 2009 MST, I did some more lunar observing with the 15mm eyepiece + 2X BL + 3X TX (800X).  There were some great views along the terminator.  I then took a quick look at Saturn with the 26mm (77X) eyepiece.  GOTOs this night had been off, with objects placed just outside the 26mm eyepiece field-of-view.  I SYNCed on the star Spica; GOTOs excellent again.

Closed the observatory at 2035 MST, 79°F.

As I was closing up the observatory, I noticed more of the bugs I had seen on the last session inside the observatory.  I removed some and captured one.  I took the photo below of the captured bug to help identify it. 

Turns out they were Kissing Bugs in my observatory!  These are not nice bugs.  I will have to get some bug spray for them.