Wednesday evening, 12 November 2025, with a possibility of a continuation of the previous night's Aurora Borealis, I monitored the Mt Lemmon all-sky camera. The night was partly cloudy. About 2120 MST I noticed there was a faint red glow visible low in the northeast on the Mt Lemmon camera. 2127 MST: I took this iPhone 15 Pro Max photo (Night Mode, 10 seconds, 1X lens) looking towards the northeast. I enhanced the colors to bring out the faint red Aurora.

Saturday morning, 15 November, with more than a week of possible rain forecast, I put the Dome Cover ON. Rain arrived Sunday morning, 16 November (day total 0.26"). Late Wednesday, 19 November, had rain from an approaching storm (0.07"). Rain continued until Thursday mid-day, 20 November (0.53"). Late Thursday afternoon a very nice rainbow appeared. Notice the extra colors below the right side arc, known as a "supernumerary rainbow". I've seen double rainbows, but had never seen a supernumerary rainbow until this one.

Click or tap on image for larger version

Rained returned late Saturday afternoon, 22 November. Had several hours of thunderstorms with frequent lightning and heavy rain at times (total 0.88"). Rain continued early Sunday morning, 23 November (0.35"). Thursday, 4 December, there was a nice sundog as sunset approached (iPhone 15 Pro Max, Camera app, 5X lens).

Friday morning, 5 December, I took this photo (iPhone 15 Pro Max, Camera app, 2X lens) of the just past full Moon setting in the western sky.

Wednesday afternoon, 10 December, I went to the observatory and removed the Dome Cover in anticipation of resuming my observatory sessions.

Open: Thursday, 11 December 2025, 1810 MST Temperature: 74°F

Session: 2109 Conditions: Clear

Equipment:
12" f/8 LX600 w/StarLock
2" 24mm UWA eyepiece
2" 5.5mm UWA eyepiece

Camera:
iPhone 15 Pro Max

SYNCed observatory clock to WWV time signals.

1819 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.

Viewed Saturn, 102X and 443X. The ring system was nearly edge-on, but visible.

I took this handheld afocal 443 image of Saturn using the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Camera app (1X lens).

SYNCed the AutoStar on the star Fomalhaut.

1834 MST: High Precision ON.

Resumed my Milky Way Globular Clusters Project that I began in April 2025. Unfortunately, the seven clusters I tried to observe this night were too faint or too small for visual observations, or had a Declination that was too low to be seen from my location. I will try to image them on my session.

1905 MST: High Precision OFF.

Viewed M45 (the Pleiades), 102X. Always a nice sight.

1912 MST: Wi-Fi ON.

Used SkySafari 7 Pro on the iPhone to GOTO to Purgathofer-Weinberger 1, the 2nd largest planetary nebula. However, due to sky conditions (holiday lighting?) the nebula was not visible, 102X. I will try again when conditions are better.

1922 MST: Wi-Fi OFF.

1929 MST: LX600 OFF.

1935 MST: Took a Sky Quality reading and reported the result to Globe at Night.

Close: Thursday, 11 December 2025, 1939 MST Temperature: 60°F

Session Length: 1h 29m Conditions: Clear, SQM 20.77

It was nice to be back in the observatory after an absence of nearly five weeks.

---

Comments are welcome using Email. Please read the Email Etiquette guidance.

---

Previous report

Cassiopeia Observatory Home Page