Vallis Alpes

[mallux]

Just wanted to share my first lunar observing experience with my new dob; the view west from my garden is pretty limited but managed to get half an hour or so with the half moon yesterday before it disappeared behind the garden wall.

Spent a while panning around the terminator with a 6mm eyepiece, I can't get over the amount of extra detail visible compared to my little 2 inch refractor. I was most taken with what looked to me like a deep scar leading into a cauliflower! The cauliflower being a roundish dark feature with white specks around the edges and the middle (obviously mountain tops just catching the sun).

I did make a sketch (which I'm not going to publish :-) and looked it up in Patrick Moore et al The Atlas of the Solar System (what a great book for £2.99 in Oxfam). Seems I was looking at the Alpine Valley and mountains. What an interesting area, I think I'll be coming back to have another look, to see how it compares when the moon is illuminated differently.

I never really understood the attraction of lunar observing, but I may be warming to it :-)

Chris