D7000 DSLR Moon Report Date: 12 June 2011

Saturday, 11 June, clear but still windy during the day. Opened the observatory at 1930 MST, 89°F, with no wind blowing. First viewed Saturn at 1942 MST; Titan was visible. Then it was off to the moon. Viewed the moon with the 26mm, 15mm, 9.7mm, and 5.5mm eyepieces. There were some really nice mountain shadows along the terminator. I began waiting for the seeing to steady down. At 2008 MST, I began setting up for D7000 DSLR imaging at prime focus of the 8" LX200-ACF. I switched from the star diagonal to the visual back. At 2010 MST, I took this image of the waxing gibbous moon, 1/500sec, ISO 500:

I then added the 2X Barlow Lens and did some imaging. I removed the Barlow Lens and added the 3X TeleXtender. As it turned out, the magnification with either was essentially the same when being used at prime focus with the visual back. But the 3X TeleXtender images were a little better. The Meade Series 4000 #126 2X Barlow Lens is really old (purchased in 1996 with my original ETX Astro Telescope). The Meade Series 5000 3X TeleXtender is much newer (2010) and has higher optical quality. Here are some of the prime focus, 3X TeleXtender, 1/250sec, ISO 1600, images:

I then combined the 2X Barlow Lens with the 3X TeleXtender and took some images at 1/200sec, ISO 3200, and 1/250sec, ISO 6400. Here are some of those:

Seeing was not ideal for the high magnification imaging but some details show up fairly well. I ended imaging at 2102 MST.

At 2112 MST, I took a quick look at Saturn. Seeing was not good enough to use the 5.5mm (364X) eyepiece, so I switched to the 9.7mm (206X) eyepiece. Five moons were visible: Iapetus, Titan, Tethys, Rhea, and Dione.

Closed the observatory at 2135 MST, 76°F.

During the evening, I saw two Kissing Bugs in the observatory plus there were two dead ones that had been caught in the spider traps. I may have to spray the plants to the west of the observatory. I had previously only sprayed the plants on the east side.

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