Monday, 23 November 2015, dawned mostly cloudy and breezy. The sky became mostly clear with light breezes in the afternoon.

Open: Monday, 23 November 2015, 1806 MST Temperature: 68°F

Session: 887 Conditions: Clear, calm

1814 MST: viewed the Moon using the Meade 8" LX200-ACF, 83X. Unlike on the past several sessions, seeing was pretty good this evening. I initially tried a handheld iPhone 6s Plus afocal photo of the Moon using the Meade 2" 24mm UWA eyepiece (83X). Unfortunately, that was just a little too much magnification to capture the entire lunar disk. Switched to an OPT 2" 30mm eyepiece (67X) and could capture the entire disk with the handheld iPhone. I then switched to the Meade 1.25" 26mm eyepiece (77X) and mounted the iPhone using the Orion SteadyPix Universal Smartphone Telescope Photo Mount. The Moon's entire illuminated disk was just barely in the camera field-of-view, as seen in this iOS Camera app afocal photo:

Added the Televue 2" 2X PowerMate to the 26mm eyepiece and did some iPhone afocal imaging at 154X:

Northern region:


Crater Copernicus:


Southern region:

1837 MST: removed the SteadyPix and iPhone and did some lunar observing, 166X. 1856 MST: seeing was beginning to deteoriate so removed the 2X PowerMate. Added one filter from the Zhumell 2" Variable Polarizer Filter set to reduce the Moon's brightness for visual observing at 83X. Nice view of the almost Full Moon.

1902 MST: last look at the Moon, 83X. Removed the filter and viewed M45 (Pleiades open star cluster). Due to the nearby bright Moon only the bright stars were visible; no nebulosity was seen. Then began closing up the observatory.

Close: Monday, 23 November 2015, 1915 MST Temperature: 59°F

Session Length: 1h 09m Conditions: Clear

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