I opened the observatory Sunday, 26 February, at 1813 MST, 71°F. The sky was mostly clear with a few clouds low along the west to northeast horizon. But there was a strong breeze blowing. I delayed opening the dome due to the breeze. At 1821 MST, I decided to open the dome and 2 minutes later I was viewing Venus, 77X. Then Jupiter, followed by the moon. About 10 minutes after local sunset, I took this D7000 DSLR photo of Jupiter (top left), the moon, and Venus (bottom) at f/4.5, 1/250sec, ISO 500, 70mm:

I then mounted the D7000 at the 8" prime focus and took this image of the moon, 1/320sec, ISO 1600:

Next, I tried a video recording of the crater Petavius, prime focus + 3X TeleXtender, 1/200sec, ISO 1600, but it was too underexposed for stacking. I did capture this cropped, single frame view of Petavius, 1/200sec, ISO 3200:

I then took this iPhone 4 photo of the western sky showing Jupiter (left of the moon), the moon, Venus (below the moon), and the 8" LX200-ACF:

I next began some Jupiter video recording tests. This is a stack of 744 frames, 1/250sec, ISO 5000, cropped and upscaled 200%:

While imaging Jupiter, the neighbor to the north began making his contribution to the global light pollution problem while pursuing his policy of energy resource waste by illuminating my land. Fortunately, this night, the illumination was short-lived.

I ended imaging and took a quick look at Jupiter, 231X. Four moons were visible. I then did a quick tour of the moon at 231X. Due to an early day of many errands on the next day, I ended this session in the observatory.

Closed the observatory at 1930 MST, 59°F. There was still a strong breeze blowing.

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