iPhone ETX-105PE Moon Report Date: 9 June 2011

8 June 2011, no haze or smoke in the sky today. There were some strong breezes blowing but I wanted to test the Southern Stars SkyWire telescope control cable for the iPhone, iPOD touch, and iPad with the ETX. The previous night I had tested it with the LX200-ACF. Opened the SkyShed POD at 1818 MST, 96°F. I set up the ETX-105PE in front of the observatory:

You can see the RS-232 cable and the SkyWire dangling from the telescope. Since I used the iPhone for the photo, it wasn't yet connected. As I started the testing, the breezes went away. I completed the SkyWire testing at 1930 MST. I will post a review soon.

At 1946 MST, I began setting up for iPhone lunar imaging with the ETX. The iPhone was placed on the ETX using the MX-1 afocal adapter with a 26mm eyepiece (57X). The iPhone Camera app captured this image of the moon:

There was some overexposure in the image so I added a moon filter. That actually made the overexposure worse!

I added a 3X TeleXtender to the 26mm eyepiece (170X) and took these lunar images with the iPhone 4:

I then slewed the ETX to Saturn and began trying to image its moons. Just as I started the first long duration exposure with the "Slow Shutter" app, the wind kicked up again, moving the telescope and blurring the image. I tried several times to capture a good image but the gusts were just too strong. I decided to close up for the night.

Closed the observatory at 2048 MST, 73°F.

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