Sunday, 9 July 2023, Monsoon Season finally arrived with a mostly cloudy sky and near 50°F dewpoints. Fortunately, I have had a good run of mostly clear nights since back in April 2023. Forecasts called for cloudy skies with possible thunderstorms for at least the next week. The cloudy nights not only impacted my Herschel 400 observing and imaging, it also prevented me from doing some tests with a new telescope accessory. By Monday, 17 July, no rain had occurred in Oracle during the previous week, but with increasing thunderstorm chances for the next week, I put the Dome Cover ON. Mid-afternoon I measured the temperature of the concrete pathway to the observatory when the air temperature was 99°F.

Late that afternoon a thunderstorm came through. First, there was this dust storm several miles west of Oracle.

A few minutes later the rain began with an accumulation of 0.31" in 30 minutes and the air temperature dropped 30° from 98°F to 68° in 30 minutes.

Tuesday afternoon, 18 July, with the outside air temperature 100°F, I went to the observatory to check on the air conditioner (it was working). I saw this bunny resting in the shade by the observatory.

Tuesday night SpaceX had planned to launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Due to clouds I didn't expect to see it like other California launches I've seen from Arizona (22 December 2017 and 27 October 2022). However, I set up my D850 DSLR to photograph the launch if the thin clouds allowed. Unfortunately, the launch was aborted at T-5 seconds and then scrubbed for the night.

Wednesday, 19 July, was mostly cloudy. That night SpaceX had a successful launch from California. The clouds thinned out in the western sky just enough to see part of the launch from Arizona. Here are three handheld iPhone 13 Pro Max photos showing the rocket exhaust plume.

Monsoon Season thunderstorms are forecast to continue for the area into next week.

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I have posted my review of Total Eclipse Guide - Indiana, one of a series of guidebooks for each state in the United States along the Path of Totality for the 8 April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse.

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