iPhone 5s: Lunar Craters Copernicus and Clavius
Posted: 14 October 2013
Cassiopeia Observatory was opened Sunday, 13 October 2013, at 2049 MST, 66°F, for what ended up being a short session. The sky was clear. Slewed to the moon and viewed it at 83X. I then switched to the 2" 9mm 100° eyepiece (222X) and did some lunar touring. The craters Copernicus and Clavius looked very nice this night, although seeing was not very good.
At 2104 MST, I handheld the iPhone 5s over the 9mm eyepiece and did a video recording. This is Copernicus, cropped from one frame from the video:
This is Clavius, cropped from a frame from a slo-mo video:
I resumed lunar observing at 222X. The central peaks in the crater Longomontanus showed a nice double shadow at times of good seeing. Longomontanus is the large crater above and to the left of Clavius in the above image.
At 2123 MST, some strong breezes began blowing and seeing was getting worse. I did some terrestrial nightscope viewing.
At 2135 MST, using a 2" 24mm UWA eyepiece (83X), I took this handheld afocal photo using the iPhone 5s:
I then began closing up.
The observatory was closed at 2147 MST, 63°F.
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