The sky was cloudy Wednesday, 29 January, and Thursday, 30 January 2020. However, at sunset on Thursday the sky cleared enough to possibly do some Moon imaging.

I was going to post this report early Friday morning, 31 January, but a contractor working at a new home site near us cut a buried electrical cable and killed our electricity. Idiot. Fortunately a portion of our house has backup power from our Tesla Powerwall that was installed last summer. The power was restored after about 90 minutes.

Open: Thursday, 30 January 2020, 1815 MST Temperature: 62°F

Session: 1431 Conditions: Partly cloudy

Equipment:
12" f/8 LX600 w/StarLock
2" 24mm UWA eyepiece
2" 9mm 100° eyepiece

Camera:
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPad Pro 9.7"

1819 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.

1822 MST: viewed the planet Mercury, very low in the western sky, 102X.

Then viewed the planet Venus, 102X.

1825 MST: viewed the Moon through thin clouds, 102X.

Next, I set up my iPad Pro 9.7" in preparation for the monthly International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) Dark Sky Advocates video teleconference that would start at 1900 MST. This would be the first one I attended from inside my observatory. This iPad Pro photo is what I hoped the participants would see.

I then did some handheld lunar imaging using the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Afocal 102X, NightCap Camera (ISO 32, 1/200sec, 1X lens, slight crop)


Afocal 271X, NightCap Camera (ISO 500, 1/300sec, 1X lens, slight crop)


Afocal 271X, NightCap Camera (ISO 500, 1/120sec, 1X lens)

1900 MST: the video teleconference began. Near the end of the call I handheld the iPad Pro camera over the 24mm eyepiece (102X) to show the participants the Moon as seen through my 12" telescope. That seemed to add some excitement to everyone.

2007 MST: call ended.

2011 MST: LX600 OFF.

Close: Thursday, 30 January 2020, 2018 MST Temperature: 46°F

Session Length: 2h 03m Conditions: Mostly clear

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Click the photo below to view a 41 second video about my talk at the 2nd David H. Levy Arizona Dark Sky Star Party in May 2020.

Click for video in a new window

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