The Moon and Atlantis

[The Warthog]

I went out at 10:00, and the moon was pretty clear, so I set up the scope, and, true to form, clouds had started to bother the moon by the time I found the best place for the scope and got it pointed. I took a quick look through my 24mm ep, and noticed that the craters were boiling and waving. I incresed the mag to 96 (8mm) and it was like looking at the projection of the moon on a bedsheet on a breezy night. However, moon features are big, so I could see a lot of stuff. The moon would occasionally darken as cloud moved across it, and it got a little frustrating. Fist thing I spotted were Atlas and Hercules, south of Mare Serenitatis. I like this pairing, as Atlas is about 90 km around, and Hercules about 70, and the two mythical figures are neatly paired in the story of Atlas tricking Hercules into taking the sky off his shoulders, and then Hercules tricking him into taking it back. These guys may have been mythical, but they were really gullible, too. Franklin and Cepheus, to the northeast, are another nice pair, and Chevallier in the same area stood out nicely. A nicely outstanding crater a few hunderd km to the south is Macrobius, and its partner Tisserand make a nice pairing. All these have diamerters of 40 to 66km. A bit further than I drive to work.

I skirted the Sea of Tranquility, and tried to sort out the tangle at the terminator. What I thought was a mountain plateau of some sort appears to be part of the wall of Maskelyne. Hard to tell what some of this stuff is. I moved to the southern regions, but the cloud was getting more and more persistent, so I finally gave up.

While all this was happening, the alarm on my watch went off at 10.32, just in time for me to look for Atlantis and the ISS, appearing in the WNW and travelling towards the ESE. It took me a minute or so to realize that I was looking into the ENE at first, and it was cloudy, but I turned to the right direction in time to see the pair clear the clouds and drift across the sky, a few degrees apart. I don't know if it was sky conditions, or if Atlantis was manoeuvring, but it changed brightness considerably a few times as I watched it go into the shadow. This marks the first time I have seen a shuttle in orbit, and I'm hoping to repeat the experience tomorrow night. It is fascinating to see those little lights, and realize there are people up there.

[Doc]

Sounds like a good night..

I'm always looking at the moon with my Tal.

So much detail at times.

I've also seen the ISS but the shuttle at the moment eludes me.

Mick