Collecting Craters

After a cloudy and really windy start to the day yesterday I wasn't expecting to be able to get out last night. I was really surprised to find that by about 7pm the moon was out and the sky was visible. After I'd got everything done at home, I got out into the garden at about 9pm. The Sky was a little hazy, but it didn't interfere, in fact it probably helped me somewhat.

I took all the gear outside and grabbed my Atlas of the moon. Leveled the mount as carefully as possible with the bubble level. I'd checked the bubble level against a normal spirit level with the mount off the tripod during the day and they seemed pretty close. I chose to do a one star align, to see how well it would hold the sky, chose Sirius and slewed the scope round to get setup. I started out with the 5mm Ortho, but just couldn't get close enough to get he star centered. I think I must have knocked my RDF at some point. I dropped in the 5mm Hyperion instead and that sorted me out. Once aligned, I set the tracking rate to Lunar and manually slewed back to the moon. Goto isn't really needed here, although it would have meant that I didn't have to hold down the button, oh the hardship.

I checked the alignment in the ep and dazzled myself a little, I forgot about this and the reason I'd bought the ND filter in the first place. So, whilst I was adding the 2x barlow to take the magnification up to 160x I added the ND filter to the hyperion. Dropped the stack of metal and glass in the diagonal and watched as my little scope automagically without any help from me or the slew controls pivoted skywards. Oh no thought I (well not really, there were a few choice words to be said, but I can't repeat them here). Suffice to say, damn and blast. Whilst I'd managed to balance the Hyperions on there own by using a long dovetail and shifting the scope forward a little, the combined weight was too much for the NexStar mount. So today I'll be tightening the bolt in the Altitude adjuster, a little tighter should hold it all nicely.

Luckily I caught it all before he diagonal smacked into the base of the mount. I swapped the Hyperion for the 5mm Ortho with the ND filter instead, and there was no weight issues at all. It turns out that 160x was just too much magnification for last night. I don't think the seeing was doing much, and after about 10 minutes of only really being able to make out the bigger craters and then only fuzzily, I took out the Ortho and barlow combination and went back to the Hyperion. Once focussed this was just so much better. When I went back to the Hyperion, I forgot to put the ND filter back in, but this wasn't so much of a problem now as there was a little high level mist and the moon was settling into the thin twigs of a tree which cut down the light quite nicely, but didn't seem to interfere with the view a great deal.

So at 80x I took a good look around. The first challenge was orientating the ep view to the Atlas. This wasn't so easy, as due to the rotation of the earth and the moon, the view was skewed a little. I got there in the end by using Catharina, Cyrillus and Theophilus as the reference point. Once I'd worked out the position, things became much easier. Firstly I had a look to see what could be added to my Lunar 100 list. I noted that there were two possibles, I hadn't already seen and went hunting for them.

First up, Petavius. Given the position of the Terminator, this was easier to see and I found it eventually. This then gave me two reference points and this made the plotting in the Atlas so much more easier. Then Fracastorius, nice and easy to see and Isidorus and Capella. All very close to the referent point. The FOV on the Hyperion, meant that I could see quite a chunk of the moon, without needing to move the scope. So I left it sat there, I could hear the clicking of the motors so I knew it was tracking away, quite a restful sound for a couple of reasons, one it's a nice slow and quiet rhythm, two it's reassuring that it's still going and the scope doesn't need fiddling with to put back to what you were looking at. Anyway, I studied this area of the moon at 80x for about 10 minutes, and not once did the tracking shift (that I could tell). It was quite astonishing how much more detail could be seen after staring at the same area for that length of time, compared to my previous attempts where I could get about 20 to 30 seconds at best.

I found Maskelyne next, then Vitruius, and looked at the bumpy around it, not sure what they are exactly, rilles or low mountins ?? but they looked quite impressive. I think I could just about make out the end of the Caucasus poking out of the terminator too. Then I found Atlas and Hercules. I was unable to see the Atlas craters referenced in the Lunar 100, although I tried hard. This would have been more likely at 160x, but due to the weight and seeing I couldn't do it. Maybe next time.

I then used the slew buttons, set on slow, to move along the lunar surface to the opposite end of the viewable area and had a hunt around there. First up the Rupes Altai. I've already ticked this off on the lunar 100. As it was very near, I picked up Piccolomini at the same time. moving on up (based on the book), I next bagged Hommel and Pitiscus. Then on the way back again, had a good look for and spotted Janssen.

The wind was beginning to get up a bit at this point, and I kept having to wait for lulls in the gusts for the view to settle, but preserving and swinging back past Catharina, Cyrillus and Theophilus again, I found and grabbed Endymion, Gartner and Arnold. These last three were much harder to spot, I think the view appeared further around than my atlas shows, so I guess this was an effect of libration. From there back for a few easy ones, Franklin and Grove. It took me fair few minutes, as I managed to lose myself finding Romer, but I got there in the end.

I wish in some ways I could describe the craters better. But I guess I wasn't using enough Magnification to really get a good look at them so I've just named them. I spent an hour looking at the moon during which time, apart from using the slow motion slew to move the view around to find the craters, I didn't have to adjust the scope at all and the NexStar mount maintained the Lunar tracking without issues.

The Big Dipper being overhead now, as opposed to being low down in the murk over Gatwick, I thought I'd have a go at using the Goto to see if I could find me a galaxy I've hunted for and failed to find previously. So, I adjusted the tracking rate from Lunar back to Sidereal, hit the M for Messier button on the handset and typed in 051. Away went the scope. After it had come to rest and the motors were just ticking away to them selves, I had a good look through the eyepiece. I really wanted to see something, and a couple of times thought I had, but couldn't be sure. I decided to go and have a look at M44 and Saturn before going in.

I hit the goto for M44 and whilst it was slewing watched a big patch of greyness sweep out of the west and blot out M44. Ah well, scrub that one. Go for Saturn. The mount slewed around, slowing during the approach, and wait, what's this. It's out again. Blast it. Then I realised. Not only was I using the old tired AA batteries, which were ok for maintaining the track of the moon, but I guess the frantic slewing through a total of 270 degrees must have worn them out, but also, the shift of the scope through the weight probably put out the alignment. Ah well, not a problem with Saturn, so I manually adjusted and had a good long look. I saw one moon, Rhea whilst looking. Then decided enough was enough as the clouds were really making there presence felt.

A great nights viewing with the NexStar mount really doing itself justice on tracking. I really enjoyed last night and look forward to getting the mount adjusted and properly powered so I can really use it properly. I also added one more to the Lunar 100.