A brief lunar tour - 17th April

Whilst it was a little windy with gusts, and the sky had a slight mistiness too it, I decided to set up and have a look at the moon again. So after the usual, level, solar system align on Saturn, I swung across to the moon.

I started out once again, with attempting a sketch, this time of Aristarchus and it's environs. This was quite tricky as the seeing was not good tonight. This might be because the moon was quite low to the roof line on the house, and I was being impacted by heat coming of the roof.



After completing the sketch, I had a good look around, as I'd been sketching in the area, there's Aristarchus, Herodotus and H, the Vallis Schroter, and nearby what looked like a small mountain range, but I can't find any reference to this. I also made a very rough sketch for ID purposes including up to Sinus Iridium, and using this and Copernicus as the referent points. Around sinus Iridium I found, Mairan & A, Sharp and A & B, Louville and Harpalus. I also looked in on Sinus Roris. Moving North I found Kepler, Marius and Reiner, but Reiner Gamma was hiding in the terminator. It was quite astonishing the difference that the change in contrast from the movement in the terminator and the seeing conditions make, I couldn't make out a lot of the craters I'd spotted in this region last night.

I moved on to the Gassendi region and had a look at the area that had moved out of shadow. Gassendi and A, Mersenius and A, Billy, Hansteen, Zupus and Cavendish, I carried on further and was able to pick out Schikard from the edge of the terminator, it was playing hide and seek, being half in shadow and half in light. Then, speaking of playing hide and seek, the Moon had a go as she ducked into a cloud bank. That put paid to any further observing, so I packed up. Went in, fired up VMA and worked out what I'd seen.