Open: Monday, 24 February 2025, 1813 MST Temperature: 87°F

Session: 2075 Conditions: Mostly clear

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

Camera:
D850 DSLR

1817 MST: Sunset. Viewed the planet Earth (#1).

1818 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.

Slewed to Mercury, but it was not yet visible in the bright twilight sky. Prepared the D850 DSLR for imaging.

1827 MST: Viewed the planet Mercury (#2), 102X. It was very low in the western sky and showed a small disk.

1829 MST: Viewed the planet Saturn (#3), 102X. The planet's disk was faintly visible. The Ring was not visible as the planet was low in the western sky and the sky was still bright.

1839 MST: Saturn's edge-on Ring was barely detectable in the bright twilight sky, 102X.

1842 MST: Slewed to Neptune, also low in the western sky. It was not yet visible.

1844 MST: Relaxed on the observatory patio bench while waiting for the sky to get darker.

1900 MST: High Precision ON.

1904 MST: Viewed the planet Neptune (#4), 102X. I confirmed it was a planet using 271X which showed a small disk.

1907 MST: Viewed the planet Venus (#5), 102X. A nice crescent phase was visible.

1909 MST: Viewed the planet Uranus (#6), 102X. The planet disk was easily seen.

1915 MST: Viewed the planet Jupiter (#7) and the four Galilean Moons, 102X.

1917 MST: Viewed the planet Mars (#8), 102X. The North Polar Cap was visible.

It was fun to see eight planets this night. This chart from SkySafari 7 Pro shows the positions of the planets in the sky after sunset.

1919 MST: Relaxed on the patio bench while waiting for the end of Astronomical Twilight.

192640 MST: Saw a bright meteor in Gemini moving south towards Orion. The head was orange-ish with some debris trailing behind it.

1930 MST: Back in the observatory.

Mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus + focal reducer, focused on the star Dubhe, locked the primary mirror, and slewed to M81.

1942 MST: StarLock ON.

I did several framing test exposures to get M81 (Bode's Galaxy) and M82 (Cigar Galaxy) in the camera field-of-view. I then did 15 StarLock autoguided images (1 minute, ISO 4000). Seeing was not great so only 11 images were usable for stacking. The first image below is a single image. The second image is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) merge in Adobe Lightroom.

Click or tap on image for larger version

Click or tap on image for larger version

2013 MST: StarLock OFF.

Viewed M81 (Bode's Galaxy) and M82 (Cigar Galaxy), 102X. Both galaxies were visible the same field-of-view.

2019 MST: LX600 OFF.

2023 MST: The star Canopus was nicely visible low in the southern sky.

2025 MST: Took a Sky Quality reading and reported the result to Globe at Night.

Close: Monday, 24 February 2025, 2033 MST Temperature: 60°F

Session Length: 2h 20m Conditions: Clear, SQM 20.59

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