The winds picked up again Friday morning, 25 May 2018, and clouds began arriving mid-day. Saturday, 26 May, was overcast. Sunday, 27 May, was clear, but strong breezes came up along with unforecasted clouds by mid-afternoon. Breezes began calming down about 30 minutes before sunset, but the cloud cover was increasing.

Open: Sunday, 27 May 2018, 1855 MST Temperature: 78°F

Session: 1239 Conditions: Partly cloudy

Equipment Used:
12x50 binoculars

Camera:
D850 DSLR
iPhone 8 Plus

Due to the clouds I decided to not power on the telescope after opening the observatory.

1859 MST: the almost Full Moon began to rise over the hill to the southeast.

I stepped outside of the observatory and began photographing the rising Moon. This photo was taken with the D850 DSLR (f/10, 1/400sec, ISO 400, FL 300mm):

1913 MST: used the 12x50 binoculars to observe the Moon. It was pretty against the still bright blue sky before sunset. I spotted the planet Jupiter about 5°30' west of the Moon in the binoculars. But the Moon and planet were not in the same field of view of the 12x50 binoculars.

Clouds were rapidly approaching the Moon, as seen in this D850 DSLR photo (f/16, 1/125sec, ISO 400, FL 145mm):

1925 MST: sunset.

1928 MST: iPhone 8 Plus photo of the western sky and the observatory:

1932 MST: took this iPhone panorama photo from the southeast (left) showing the Moon over the hill, through the west, and to the north showing the observatory:

Click or tap on image for larger version

1944 MST: Jupiter was visible near the Moon but clouds were rapidly covering up both the planet and the Moon. I managed to get this D850 photo (f/5.6, 1/80sec, ISO 400, FL 300mm) of the Moon (lower left corner) and Jupiter (upper right corner) through the clouds:

1946 MST: Jupiter was hidden by the clouds. I decided to end this session at the observatory because of the clouds.

Close: Sunday, 27 May 2018, 1955 MST Temperature: 73°F

Session Length: 1h 00m Conditions: Mostly cloudy

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The wife has ordered a Nikon Coolpix P900 to replace her failing Canon compact video camera. She is going to let me borrow it for some astrophotography tests. Stay tuned...

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