Our first priority was viewing the eclipse from the Musk Observatory. The eclipsed moon began rising in the west shortly after our arrival at the Mars Desert Research Station. We hoped to image the progress of the eclipse with the stv viewer, but a network problem and/or misalignment prevented us from getting anything. We also tried using a Pictor 416 ccd on loan from Brigham Young University, but the focus was too far off (the telescope was set for visual observations with the eyepiece rather than a ccd). What worked fairly well (and I wish we had discovered this earlier) was holding up a digital camera to the finderscope. The moon was still extremely bright, and one image was taken through an almost opaque (but unlabeled) filter I found in the observatory. This made a very nice picture of the eclipsed moon looking very reddish (the color was caused by the filter, I was surprised how colorless the moon was during the duration of the eclipse). This less sophisticated method gave us something to show for the night. Pictures have been uploaded by Doug Archer.

Watching the eclipse was incredible. From the Musk Observatory, the rising moon was seen directly above the MDRS Habitat. As the moon became covered by the Earth's shadow, it became noticably darker and more stars could be seen. During totality, the moon disappeared and the heavens were full of bright stars. Contrast this with an hour later when the full moon washed out all but the brightest stars in about a quarter of the sky and you could walk between the observatory and the habitat without needing your flashlight.

Observing the moon through the telescope was awesome. While far off from the position for the ccd, the focus was perfect for viewing with the eye. The shadow on the moon was pretty sharp, and craters could be seen even on the darkened portion on the moon.

After the eclipse was over, we realigned the telescope. The observatory computer didn't seem to be connected to the network, so we operated the ccd with a seperate laptop brought from BYU and controlled the telescope using its hand paddle. Coordinates can be inputed for user objects, allowing you to slew the telescope to your own targets. It took a long while to focus the telescope for the ccd. From its original position, stars were not even visible in the frame. Robofocus was not even connected to its control box or the computer, so after reconnecting it I was able to focus stars on the frame. They were still rather large, as the pixel scale was about .6"/pixel. We also had a very small field. The pointing was a little off, so that combined with the small field made it hard to find fields. I wasn't able to locate IP UMa, but I was able to find the delta scuti pulsator V2314 Oph, a field which I had observed last week. Another difficulty was keeping the star on the frame along with suitable comparison stars. The tracking was a little off so the field had to be readjusted frequently and exposures were limited to 30 seconds. I observed V2314 Oph from about 2:30 until 4:30. I planned on imaging Mars, but the ccd had other ideas, so I settled for a few good looks through the eyepiece. It looked very fiery as it first came up over the horizon at about 2:30, rising very symbolically over the Mars habitat. It calmed down as it got higher in the sky but remained distinct. By five I had everything shut down and closed up, and I went to bed.

Today's plan is to do a little daylight cleaning in the observatory and sort out the cords going everywhere. Hopefully we can restore the network connection. After making sure everything is connected right, I will contact Peter Detterline about fine tuning the telescope and running the stv imager. If all works well, I will have another long night.