Open: Tuesday, 28 April 2015, 1822 MST Temperature: 82°F

Session: 815 Conditions: Mostly clear, breezy

1835 MST: viewed Venus, 83X. Then slewed to the waxing gibbous Moon. Took this handheld iPhone 5s afocal 83X photo (slightly cropped) at 1841 MST:

I then did some lunar observing using the William Optics Binoviewers at 100X and 160X. Seeing was not good but the Binoviewers provided some nice views using both eyes.

1900 MST: spotted Jupiter near the Zenith with my naked eyes. 1906 MST: sunset.

This iPhone handheld afocal 160X photo (cropped) was taken through one of the Binoviewers eyepieces and shows the crater Copernicus and the Montes Apenninus mountain range:

This (cropped) handheld iPhone afocal photo 160X shows (amongst many others) the craters Tycho (above center) and Clavius (below center):

And lastly, this (not very good) handheld iPhone afocal 160X (cropped) shows the partially illuminated ring of Sinus Iridum (left) and the crater Plato (right):

1926 MST: slewed to Jupiter and noticed that some clouds had appeared in the western sky (Venus is above the V-shaped cloud):

I hadn't seen the clouds earlier as the observatory dome blocked their view while I was observing the Moon in the eastern sky.

Even though Jupiter was at times in the clouds, the view through the Binoviewers at 160X was really awesome. Jupiter showed an almost 3D appearance. The four Galilean Moons were visible, as was the Great Red Spot.

While waiting for the clouds to move east away from Jupiter I began preparing to image Jupiter with the D7200 DSLR at prime focus + 2X PowerMate. 1955 MST: the clouds were no longer a factor for imaging Jupiter. Did a focus test on the star Procyon using the Bahnitov Mask. Then did several 30 second and 60 second HD video recordings, 1.3X crop factor, 60 fps, 1/100sec, using various ISO values. This is a stack of 3681 frames (60 seconds worth) at ISO 1600 using Keith's Image Stacker:

The Great Red Spot is visible in the Southern Equatorial Belt.

2014 MST: ended imaging. Viewed Jupiter, 166X and 83X. The view of the Great Red Spot was good.

Close: Tuesday, 28 April 2015, 2029 MST Temperature: 65°F

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