ETX70 Debut Party at the Park

At last a fairly clear Saturday night at Bentsen SP.  It was a mere two hours before full moon and there was some haze on the horizon but we got a pretty good look at Jupiter and its moons and even a 'no way' for a viewer of the Great Orion Nebula.  This was also the ETX's debut party.  I've been wanting to include it in the scope array and my new crutch tripod worked just great.  In fact the little ETX saved my bacon tonight.  The Celestron was having trouble getting aligned and after I succeeded with a one star alignment, I couldn't find Jupiter on the list of planets.  Later I decided it was because Jupiter was too high.  The mount keeps the scope from pointing straight up.  I was able to manually point it at Jupiter but by 7:30 it was so high that I managed to bang the OTA into one of the mount legs.  Not a good thing.  The little Orion 3" had a bad battery in the finder so it was a pain to point but we managed to get it looking at the moon.  All in all, we managed to get a good look at Jupiter's moons and the Orion Nebula but the full moon pretty well washed everything out by 8:00.  The new iPad was also a big hit.  Judy came along to help and was a very good assistant.  She was able to entertain the visitors with the iPad while I reset the ETX to Jupiter.  The ETX has no problem pointing straight up but is almost impossible to focus in that position.  Judy was also able to keep the little 3" pointed at the moon.  No mean feat since it is on a cheap, hard to use mount and does not track at all.
The was our first star party of this season since it has been so cloudy but I would have to call it a success.

Vesta and some astrophotography

Hard to believe that this was almost the first clear night since November!  That's not quite true but nearly so.  The post thanksgiving and Christmas/New year season has been cloudy in south Texas.  It finally cleared today and warmed up a bit to high 60's.  I didn't feel like setting up the ETX but I did take out my 7x50's and look for Vesta.  It was at the limit of visibility in binocs but I saw it up near Jupiter and the Hyades forming a shallow 'Y' pattern with 3 dim stars.  HR1442 formed the base of the Y.  I found it by drawing a line between Aldeberan and Epsilon Tauri.
The Pleiades was also pretty tonight as was the Hyades.  I explored a bit around Auriga and managed to snag M36, a dim patch not far from Beta Tauri.  That's no mean feat for binocs and light polluted skies!
The highlight though was remembering to shoot some stars with my new Canon SX150 camera.  I had some success earlier when the moon was in its first quarter but was waiting for a moonless, clear sky to try for some stars.  I also shot Jupiter when it was near the almost full moon a few nights ago.  I sat the camera up on its back on a small stool, set it for manual focus at infinity, a 15" max exposure time, and f3.2 aperture.  Success!  I was able to capture Jupiter (over exposed), the Hyades, Pleiades, and many stars down to about 6th magnitude.  I even caught a bit of foliage on my grapefruit tree.  The image shows small star trails of course and the star images aren't in the best of focus but it worked just fine for a first attempt.  I'm pleased with the new addition to my astro-tools.  It also takes very nice snapshots!  The battery life is the only disappointing feature.  It eats AA's for lunch.