Gazing at the hypnotic moon

I had another go at the moon in daylight today. I actually find viewing the moon like this a lot harder. Perhaps it's to do with the brightness of the sky, but focussing I find is a lot more tricky. Out at 1630, only got in 10 minutes before I was summonsed inside. I saw the Mare Crisium, Proclus and a plane that felt it had to make it's presence felt by flying through my eyepiece, well view anyway, and leaving two long trails of vapour behind it. When the surprise had dimmed, it was actually, quite photogenic, apart from two problems. No Camera to hand (not that I have any way of attaching it anyway), the plane had by this point flown off. Oh well. Back indoors.

Having checked on Heavens Above, there was a couple of predicted overflights. At about 1800, Iridium 23 was due to flare and at about 1900, Cosmos 1939 was due to fly, through Orion, slip neatly between the Moon and Mars and on into the night. The flare was scheduled to hit Magnitude -8, so figured that I ought to be able to see this even with the moon doing her best to upset things. About 5 minutes before 1800, Myself and the children, wrapped up warm and trooped out to have a look. I'd worked out the approximate path of the flight and was able to point them to the right place. We stood. We watched. We stood and watched some more. 10 minutes later, still no flare. Odd thought I. Never mind, I guess that as it was only a prediction, things may have changed. I pointed out a few objects naked eye. Orion, the Hyades, and one of them asked me what the little patch of stars near the Hyades was and I replied it was M45, the Pleiades. Then in again.

Just under an hour later, I'm back outside with the kids looking for Cosmos 1939. This time I bought out the camera just in case. One of them changed their minds and went back inside, and I dashed in and got my bins, both sets. I had the 12x50 and the youngest had the 7x35. We watched and scanned. Waited and watched. Another no show. This one may have just been due to the moon being so bright. So we had a quick Bino view. M42 in orion, M45 the Pleiades, The Moon, I had a quick look at Mars, not surprisingly, "nothing to see hear, move along" and back to Orion's belt to look at Collinder 70. Then back indoors again.

Some time later, 2150, I ventured back out. This time wrapped up in even more layers than normal, extra socks, extra jumper between the two fleece layers. Got setup, with the 5mm Ortho for another moon session, trying to add to my Lunar 100 list. I left the lights on in the house, and again used a white light torch after last night, this worked quite well, made seeing my notes etc, a lot easier. First up Kies Pi. I think I managed to get this one. I did it by comparing the bright and shade angles between the surrounding craters. This was definitly shaped differently, although it took about 10 minutes to be sure. Then I dashed back in to check on Ebay. I was hoping to pick up a Nexstar SLT bargain to turn my Konus Vista 80s into a Vista 80SLT. I got it wrong and missed by a whole £3. Damn, but the accountant didn't seem to worried, that's good, might be able to get the EQ5 from there tomorrow. Back outside again and back to the Lunar 100.

It took some time to work out where Cruger was, but I found it. Then I moved on to try and find some rilles. This I found really, really tricky. Partly, because I had no idea what rilles would look like through the scope. This took me nearly 15 minutes of looking, checking the Lunar 100 map, looking again and on and on, but in the end I think I worked it out and picked up the Triesnecker Rilles and the Hygenius Rille nearby. I struggled with the next item on the list (I was working my way along the line on the map) the Imbrium Sculpture. Again I think I got this, after a further 10 minutes, at least I was looking in the right place, so I'm going to say I did. Just nearby was a very obvious white line running across the surface of a mare. I checked my map and list and it as the Bessel ray, and there's another one from the list, that was much easier. Just nearby were some odd dark smudges across the surface, quite interesting I though, had a look, and lo, another one. This tie the Mare Sereniatatis dark edge, so I ticked that box too.

Then things slowed down. Between the Bessel Ray and the dark edge, my map shows there is a feature called the Serpentine Ridge. At 80x I couldn't see this. I figured it might by like the straight wall and the Altai scarp. So I stared for a while, nothing showed up. I dropped in the barlow and went up to 160x, this didn't work as well tonight as last night, I couldn't quite get Focus no matter how much I fiddled. My tripod is also a little wobbly for this amount of magnification. I took out the barlow, and the view was much easier to focus again. I guess this is bad seeing. Not something I've noticed before, but I normally use fairly wide FOV eyepieces at low magnification and I guess that poor seeing affects this setup a lot less. Anyway, I digress. Back at 80x, I did eventually pick out a small wavy line about half way between the Bessel Ray and the dark edge of the Mare, that was in about the correct position so ticket that box too.

Then after spending about 10 more minutes trying to find targets further round, I gave up. I guess I'll have to wait for the terminator to be back over there to see those. I moved further up the moon, or is that down... Hmm, not got this motion stuff sorted out with the lens and mirror combination. Ah well, I moved further up as I saw it. Found the Sinus Iridum, an easy one compared to the Serpentine Ridge, and then hunted around for Pico. It took me a while. I questioned what I was looking at (it didn't answer me, how rude...) as I kept getting lost, which is quite odd as I hadn't actually moved. But eventually figured out what I was looking for. Another box with a tick in it.

I moved from there to the Alpine valley, nice and close by and it was one of those targets that after a moments viewing leapt out at me. Almost shouting and waving a banner saying "here I am!". Now if only some of the others would do that. Then moced ona but and found the Aridaeus Rille and near that the Cayley Plaines. I hunter in vain for Arago Alpha and Beta and Sabine and Ritter for a further 10 minutes or so. Then, even with the extra layers, the cold started worming it's way through me. So I figured I'd seen enough of the moon.

I finished the session with a look at Saturn. At 80x, a small yet very nice view, and I'm sure I could see some shadow on the rings. Then had a quick look at the horse and rider, and was able to split Mizar into it's A and B components. Packed up and headed in.

So whilst drinking a nice hot cup of tea, I reviewed this evenings findings. My tour of a few more sights of La Lune netted me another 13 targets on the Lunar 100, bringing my total up to 35, hey I'm over a third of the way there. Excellent. I was a little disappointed about the satellite no shows, I wonder to whom I should write and complain ? And again enthralled by the breath taking beauty of our planets heavenly sister. What a great evening.