D7000 DSLR Moon, iPhone 4 Saturn
Posted: 20 April 2013
Cassiopeia Observatory was opened on Friday, 19 April 2013, at 2312 MST, 55°F. Due to another commitment I was late opening the observatory this night. The sky was clear but the waxing gibbous moon made the sky very bright. At 2318 MST, viewed the moon, 83X. I then captured this image using the D7000 DSLR at prime focus + 2" visual back, 1/320sec, ISO 400:
At 2335 MST, took a quick look at Saturn, 83X and 364X. Seeing was not good, but viewing Saturn is always nice.
I mounted the iPhone 4 on the 8" LX200-ACF using the MX-1 afocal adapter with a 9mm (222X) eyepiece. I did a 60 second video recording using the FiLMiC Pro app. Unfortunately, while it looked good on the iPhone screen, when the view was reviewed during post-processing, Saturn was too overexposed to be usable. I also did a 60 second video recording at 666X with FiLMiC Pro. It also looked good on the iPhone screen, but during post-processing a large spot of dust on the eyepiece was apparent. Some details of Saturn are still visible even in this stack of 1470 frames (using Keith's Image Stacker) though the dust spot and not very good seeing ruined the image:
Will try again on the next session.
At 0005 MST, viewed Saturn at 222X. Five moons were visible: Titan, Dione, Rhea, Enceladus, and Iapetus.
Closed the observatory at 0026 MST, 54°F.
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