As I walked to Cassiopeia Observatory on Monday, 10 October, there were some clouds low in the west and north at sunset. Here's what I saw in the west:

The observatory was opened at 1804 MST, 82°F. At 1810 MST, I tried for Mercury but it was too low. I did briefly view Venus through some thin clouds in the 8" telescope. At 1815 MST, viewed the moon in the 8" at 77X. Nearly full, with just a very small terminator visible. I then slewed the telescope to Antares, low in the southwestern sky, and began setting up for D7000 DSLR spectroscopy using the Star Analyser (see previous reports). After Antares, I tried for Arcturus, low in the western sky. These are processed 1/30sec, ISO 1600, images:

Antares - Spectral Type M1


Arcturus - Spectral Type K1

Seeing was not very good for either star due to their low altitude and the resulting spectra are likely somewhat inaccurate.

I ended spectroscopy imaging and set up for iPhone lunar imaging. I added the focal reducer to the 8" telescope in order to capture the entire lunar disk. I took this iPhone 4 photo of the moon at 1906 MST, which was exactly 24 hours before Full Moon. It is afocal, 26mm eyepiece, with the MX-1 afocal adapter.

I removed the iPhone and focal reducer, and beginning at 1918 MST, did some observing of the lunar terminator, such as there was, using the 9.7mm (206X) eyepiece. Seeing was not good due to thin clouds. I decided to end this session early due to thin clouds over much of the sky.

The observatory was closed at 1925 MST, 66°F.

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