Critter; iPhone 4: Mercury, Moon Video
Posted: 17 June 2013
Monsoon Season officially began on Saturday, 15 June 2013, and right on schedule, clouds from monsoon storms to the east and south were in most of my sky during the day and into the night. No observing. Sunday, 16 June, dawned clear, but by mid-morning monsoon clouds began appearing in the east and south. As sunset approached, the sky began clearing. The observatory was opened at 1854 MST, 102°F. The sky was now clear but there were breezes blowing.
At 1902 MST, viewed Venus, then Mercury, 83X. Mercury's crescent phase looked nice. Switched to 222X and viewed Mercury. Seeing was not very good. At 1919 MST, I set up for iPhone imaging using the 8" LX200-ACF with the MX-1 afocal adapter. I did both single images and video recordings at 231X using the iOS Camera app. This is the best frame from a video, cropped and upscaled 200%:
I resumed observing Mercury, 222X, at 1925 MST. I then had a visitor:
Sunset occurred at 1937 MST. I slewed to the moon and began doing some lunar terminator observing, 222X. Seeing continued to be not very good. I took this iPhone afocal image, 77X, at 1953 MST:
The effects of the poor seeing can be seen along the lunar limb. I managed to get a somewhat clear single image of the northern terminator using 231X:
Click (or tap) on the photo above to view a 10 second video (with sound from a "Hearts of Space" album; 5 MB) showing the effects of the poor seeing.
I ended imaging at 2004 MST and saw the first Kissing Bug of the evening. Terminated.
After seeing the Kissing Bug, I decided to start closing up, but first I took a quick look at Saturn 83X. Four moons were visible. I then saw two more Kissing Bugs; they were terminated.
The observatory was closed at 2016 MST, 84°F.
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