Full Moon in the Limelight — Loran Hughes Astrophotography

Last night was the first clear night in a while, so the Westwood Observatory was up and running. The full moon was in conjunction with Jupiter and obliterated everything else. Nonetheless, it was a successful evening. I spent extra time on alignment - I invested in a polar alignment scope since my last outing. Once I lined up on Polaris, I calibrated the Celestron Starsense AutoAlign and everything was good to go. Pointing and tracking problems were a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any good images of Jupiter - It was like trying to photograph something next to a searchlight, so I gave the moon the attention that it demanded.

One crucial thing that I learned last night is hardware related: the Starsense AutoAlign will reboot the hand controller part way through its alignment sequence if the laptop is connected to the CGX mount. Disconnect the laptop and it works fine. Once the alignment sequence is complete, you can connect the mount's USB cable into the laptop and use the PWI software to control the mount.

The weather is finally clearing here for the summer season, so I'm looking forward to getting more quality time under the stars.