Open: Saturday, 10 October 2020, 1741 MST Temperature: 77°F

Session: 1535 Conditions: Clear, breezy

Equipment:
12" f/8 LX600 w/StarLock
2" 24mm UWA eyepiece
2" 5.5mm 100° eyepiece
2" 2X Powermate
1.25" 3X TeleXtender

Camera:
D850 DSLR

1756 MST: sunset.

1757 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.

Viewed Jupiter and four moons, 102X Viewed Saturn, 102X. Calm now.

Relaxed on the observatory patio bench while waiting for the sky to get darker.

1830 MST: viewed Jupiter, 443X. Disks of all four moons were visible. Viewed Saturn and 4 moons, 443X.

Mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus + 2" 2X Powermate + 1.25" 3X TeleXtender. Did some video recordings (1080p, 60fps, 1 minute) of Jupiter then Saturn using various shutter speeds and ISO values. These are the stacked results.

Jupiter (3642 frames, 1/100sec, ISO 3200)


Saturn (3651 frames, 1/60sec, ISO 12800)

I then set up to redo the Right Ascension Periodic Error Correction (PEC) training using the StarLock Auto PEC. I mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus as I would normally do for deep sky imaging. I erased the old RA PEC training values.

1910 MST: dome OFF.

1919 MST: StarLock ON.

1922 MST: began StarLock Auto RA PEC training #1.

I relaxed on the bench and did some sky viewing using 12x50 binoculars.

1946 MST: training #1 was completed. I then did a dumb thing; I selected TRAIN instead of UPDATE on the AutoStar and the first training began again. Rats. I had to start over. I slewed the telescope to a star further to the east.

1952 MST: began StarLock Auto RA PEC training #1.

2016 MST: training #1 was completed.

2018-2043 MST: first RA PEC update.

2044-2109 MST: second RA PEC update.

2109 MST: StarLock OFF.

2115 MST: dome ON.

Mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus + 2" 2X Powermate + 1.25" 3X TeleXtender. Did some video recordings (1080p, 60fps, 1 minute) of Mars using various shutter speeds at ISO 3200. These is the stacked result.

Mars (3642 frames, 1/320sec, ISO 3200)

2138 MST: removed the camera, Powermate, and TeleXtender. Took a quick look at Mars, 102X.

2139 MST: LX600 OFF.

2146 MST: did a Sky Quality reading. Reported the result to Globe at Night.

Close: Saturday, 10 October 2020, 2153 MST Temperature: 67°F

Session Length: 4h 12m Conditions: Clear, SQM 21.14

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