Observe the Moon Night and a Weather Balloon

October 5th this year was international observe the moon night, and we decided to share my telescope with some friends and their kids. We had beautiful weather, snacks, and s’mores over the fire pit. We got to see the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn. It was a great evening and I think everyone had a great time.

After everyone left and we cleaned up the fire pit and the food I wanted to get one actual picture of the moon, but as I went back outside a whole bunch of clouds had rolled in. I was able to get a real quick shot during a gap in the clouds, but I really had to hurry and slightly over exposed the shot giving the moon a slight halo.

This shot was a photo stitch of 6 images of the moon. I used a Fuji-XA2 with my 10” dobsonian telescope. The camera was set to 1/200s shutter speed and ISO 6400. Each image was sharpened slightly in Registax with wavelet filters, stitched in Windows photo gallery, and some contrast and histogram adjustments were made in darktable.

But there was one major curiosity of the evening. As the sun was setting we could see the moon but I was waiting for Jupiter to come out. I finally saw a light in the west and thought we'd take a look. As I lined up the telescope I quickly realized I want actually looking at Jupiter, but a weather balloon! I only had a few seconds so I took a video through the eyepiece by hand with no stabilizing mount. I also completely guessed at the exposure settings.

My phone camera’s video settings were 1/621.6s shutter speed, ISO 3200, focused on infinity. The video was aligned in PIPP, stacked in Autostakkert, and sharpened slightly in Registax with wavelet filters.

Someone from Twitter claimed that it was likely a project loon balloon, but I haven't been able to confirm that. In the video I can just barely make out what seems to be a blinking light hanging under the balloon, in my final image it shows up as a single pixel that’s very slightly lighter than the background sky.

Seeing through a telescope is a pretty rare occasion for most people so it's always lots of fun to share the experience.