iPhone 5s: Lunar Mare Humorum, Uranus
Posted: 15 October 2013
Cassiopeia Observatory was opened Monday, 14 October 2013, at 1820 MST, 75°F. The sky was clear but some clouds were low along the southern horizon. At 1827 MST, viewed Mercury and Saturn, 83X, both low in the sky and seen through nearby trees. Then viewed Venus, 83X. The 8" LX200-ACF was then slewed to the moon and I viewed it at 83X. I switched to 222X and began searching for a good target along the terminator to do a sunrise image sequence. I didn't find a good one, but did see a star about to be occulted near the lunar north pole. Seeing was not very good. The star was occulted at 1839 MST (time approximate).
I then returned to lunar terminator observing. There were some interesting shadows in the illuminated portion of Mare Humorum. At 1859 MST, I captured this scene using the iPhone 5s, handheld afocal, 222X, cropped from a video recording frame:
By 1926 MST, seeing had not improved. Switched to 83X on the moon and took this iPhone 5s photo, afocal, handheld:
At 1930 MST, viewed Neptune, 83X and 222X. That was followed by Uranus, 222X. I then did a handheld iPhone 5s video recording, 222X, of Uranus. This is a cropped frame from the video:
At various times during the session I did some moon-lit terrestrial viewing with a 2X nightscope. Didn't see any critters.
Due to the poor seeing, observatory was closed at 1947 MST, 61°F.
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