Open: Wednesday, 16 December 2015, 2012 MST Temperature: 35°F

Session: 897 Conditions: Clear

There was still some snow and ice on the ground and pathway from Monday's 1" snowfall as I went out to the observatory this night.

After powering on the 8" LX200-ACF telescope, the Wireless AutoStar II handcontroller buttons worked fine this night. Keeping the handcontroller in the house during the day obviously helped since it did not "freeze" from the low temps in the observatory. I plan to bring it inside the house after each session until the temperature overnight warms up.

2019 MST: viewed the Moon, 83X. Next, I mounted the iPhone 6s Plus on the 8" telescope for afocal imaging using the Orion SteadyPix Universal Smartphone Telescope Photo Mount. This is an afocal 77X image:

Added the Televue 2X PowerMate for these afocal 154X images along the lunar terminator:

I then removed the iPhone and SteadyPix and did some lunar observing at 166X. Nice views along the terminator.

2044 MST: powered on the GC Wi-Fi Adapter and did some testing of the just released SkySafari 5 Pro using the iPhone 6s Plus. I will post my review once I finish testing the new version. During the tests I viewed M42 (Orion Nebula), the planets Uranus and Neptune, the asteroid Vesta, and NGC2392 (Eskimo Nebula) at 83X.

2112 MST: the AutoStar handcontroller button presses were now getting sluggish with the temperature at 32°F. Decided to end the session.

Close: Wednesday, 16 December 2015, 2125 MST Temperature: 31°F

Session Length: 1h 13m Conditions: Clear

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Check out the new SkyShed POD MAX web site. Watch the video at the bottom of the page. Awesome!

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