Astronomy Observing Reports: OBSERVING REPORT FOR JULY 12, 2014

Sunday, July 13, 2014

OBSERVING REPORT FOR JULY 12, 2014

Location: Little Lepreau, New Brunswick, Canada

Date Time: July 12, 2014 2100-0100hrs

Weather: 15 degrees Celsius, partly cloudy, humid, lots of dew, slight to no breeze.

Equipment: 8" Meade LX200 SC telescope, Canon 450D DSLR camera, CT3000 Planetary Imager, 32 mm, 12.5mm and 9mm eyepieces.

Attendance: Grace W. and Myself

Objective: To view, image and show Grace the full Moon and Saturn.

Report: Was set up almost an hour before sundown. As the sun went down, a very reddish full Moon could be seen through the trees to the SW. It took a long time before the Moon rose above the trees, by about 2220hrs it could be seen still slightly reddish and Saturn and Mars stood out well to the SW. Mars was more to the west and went down about two hours before Saturn. It was a great night to view Saturn.

Showed Grace the Full Moon, Mars and Saturn, in that order with the telescope at manual and a 32mm 2" eyepiece. Grace was very impressed at Saturn especially...and was even more amazed when I stepped up the magnification. The rings were very much opened up and visible with clear separation.

One of Saturn's moons, Titan was clearly visible to the lower left in the eyepiece. It did not show up in the images however.

Mars just looked like a bright red star at low magnification, but with the 12.5mm eyepiece the disk became very much visible. It seemed hazy with darker shades of red kind of shimmering. It clearly looked like a planet though...the first time for me.

Many images of the Moon and Saturn were taken with the Canon 450D(with12.5mm eyepiece) and then with the Planetary Imager at prime focus.

No shooting stars and one satellite was seen.

This particular full Moon was the closest to the Earth for 2014, which made it the biggest full moon of the year. It was so bright that the Big Dipper (in the NW) and Cassiopeia (in the NE) were very much dimmed and difficult to see.