After my last long night of imaging, I was hoping for a clear night before the waxing moon got too bright.  However, clouds, winds, rain, and even snow kept me away from the observatory (except to take the photo above).  The temperature even got down to 24°F Saturday night, 9 April. Hard to believe this weather as the calendar says it is April in Southern Arizona.  I created time-lapse movies of the weather for 8 April (clouds) and 9 April (snow).

But the sky cleared on Sunday, 10 April.  I opened the observatory at 1735 MST, 68°F.  I viewed the sun in white light with the 8” and Hydrogen-Alpha using the PST.  Two small sunspot groups were visible in the 8”.  Five nice prominences were visible in the PST, as well as a lot of good details on the solar disk.  I tried to use a FeXIV solar faculae enhancement filter on the 8”.  This filter was included with the (discontinued) Coronado White Light Solar Filter for the ETX-90.  However, the view was too dark when the filter was used with my stopped down 8” and solar filter.  On the PST, I switched from the included 12.5mm (32X) eyepiece to my 9.7mm (41X) and then 5.5mm (73X) eyepieces, and viewed the prominences.  The view was especially good in the 9.7mm eyepiece.  I ended solar observing at 1819 MST, about 30 minutes before sunset, as the sun had gotten into the trees.

I slewed the 8” to the moon but it was too near the zenith to be viewed from inside the POD.  One of these days I’ve got to get the PZT (POD Zenith Table) and/or a pier for the telescope.  The PZT allows the dome to be moved off to the side for zenith viewing.  A pier would be offset from the center of the POD, allowing views at the zenith.  With my current LX200 tripod and wedge, I found that placing it off-center was too confining in some positions.  PZT, pier, larger aperture.  Ah, the dreams!

At 1912 MST, the moon was visible in the 8” telescope and I took this iPhone 4 afocal (77X) photo using the MX-1 afocal adapter:

I then mounted the D7000 DSLR at prime focus of the 8” and captured this image, 1/250sec, ISO 400:

Next, I attached the 3X TeleXtender at prime focus and took these D7000 photos, 1/200sec, ISO 2000:

I then did some imaging of the Crater Ptolemaeus to try to capture some nice shadows inside the crater.  As I was doing the imaging, I noticed a bright spot visible inside a shadow.  I checked the Moon Globe app on the iPhone and saw that the bright spot was a small crater wall inside Ptolemaeus, as seen in this screen capture (the small crater is just above the “l” in Ptolemaeus):

The small crater wall was being illuminated by the rising sun.  Later, using the Virtual Moon Atlas app on my Mac, I discovered this small crater is named Ammonius.

I was able to image the bright crater wall inside the shadow, as seen in this 1/200sec, ISO 3200 image, cropped to match the screen capture above:

At 2049 MST, I ended lunar astrophotography and viewed Ptolemaeus and the shadows with the 26mm + 3X TeleXtender (231X).  I then viewed Saturn with the 26mm + 3X TeleXtender.  Three moons were visible.  I then did some imaging of Saturn with the D7000 DSLR at prime focus + 3X TeleXtender.  Seeing was pretty bad.  None of the single images were any good.  I did a video capture with the D7000 and while most of the frames showed the rings “flexing” and the planet blurring out, I was able to find one frame (cropped) that captured Saturn fairly well:

I then viewed Saturn with the 15mm (133X), 9.7mm (206X), and 5.5mm (364X) eyepieces.  With the bad seeing, the views were not very good, but at times, the view in the 9.7mm eyepiece was pretty good.

Before closing the observatory, I did another test of the Wireless AutoStar II and SLEEP mode on the LX200-ACF using the MODE key.  The previous time I did this test, the telescope would not wake from sleep.  This time it did.  I suspect the rechargeable batteries were too low that last time, as I had to replace them shortly after that first test.  Nice to know that it does work.

Closed the observatory at 2140 MST, 41°F.

In other news, I was interviewed by the New York Times for an article on telescopes and iPhone astrophotography.  It was a long interview but I only got a brief mention.  They did use a photo I took.  It is a good article.  If you have the newspaper, check the "Bright Ideas" section of the Sunday, 10 April 2011, edition, or you can read it online at the New York Times.