Open: Friday, 18 December 2015, 1808 MST Temperature: 57°F

Session: 899 Conditions: Clear, some breezes

The snow and ice finally melted after Monday's 1" snowfall.

Upon opening the observatory I received a notification from SkySafari 5 Pro about an Iridium satellite flare occurring in a few minutes. Such notifications are one of the new features in version 5 (review will be posted soon). I looked where it said the flare would be and sure enough, there it was, right on time.

1820 MST: quick look at the near First Quarter Moon with the 8" LX200-ACF at 83X. I then began setting up my 10 year old ETX-105PE on the observatory patio:

I plan to use the ETX-105PE at an event later this month so wanted to check it out.

Auto Align was successful. I did a GOTO M1 (Crab Nebula), which was low in the eastern sky. The AutoStar #497 put M1 in the 26mm eyepiece (57X) field-of-view (FOV). M1 was faintly visible even with the bright Moon high in the sky. Then did a GOTO M57 (Ring Nebula); AutoStar put it in the center of the eyepiece FOV. A GOTO the Moon was also good. The Moon appeared sharp at 57X. Seems like my old ETX-105PE will perform well at the upcoming event.

Using the Orion SteadyPix Universal Smartphone Telescope Photo Mount I mounted my iPhone 6s Plus on the ETX-105PE for afocal imaging of the Moon. This is afocal 57X:

Added a Meade Series 5000 3X TeleXtender to the 26mm eyepiece (yielding 170X) for this iPhone photo of the northern portion of the Moon:

Next, I used my Baader Hyperion Zoom 8-24mm Mark III Eyepiece on the ETX-105PE. As I mentioned in my review, this eyepiece would be good for use at star parties and I plan to use it at the upcoming event. The views of the Moon were excellent at all focal lengths, yielding magnifications of 61X to 184X.

1925 MST: ended ETX use. Returned to the 8" telescope in the observatory and did some lunar observing at 83X. I then did some more tests with SkySafari 5 Pro on my iPhone 6s Plus for my review. 1947 MST: last look at the Moon, 83X.

Close: Friday, 18 December 2015, 1959 MST Temperature: 55°F

Session Length: 1h 51m Conditions: Clear, breezy

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