Clavius Crater - Great view last night

[Aronnax]

After originally intending to get out last night and look at some open clusters, and a couple of Messier objects, I ended up realising that the moon was really quite bright in the sky and decided to spend some time on that instead. A quick glance around at Tycho, and the Montes Apenninus impressed, but I was really struck by Clavius crater.

At the time of observing, Clavius was close to the terminator and I was drawn to the arrangement of Clavius, Rutherfurd, Porter, Clavius C and D craters. It really was a spectacular sight in the well cratered Southern regions of the moon, and I'll definitely be returning to observe again!

All of this was with my 4.5" reflector at 45x, and then 150x mag. Some atmospheric shimmer visible at 150x, but some lovely moments of clarity to really study the features of the moon.

I can see why the late great Sir Patrick was drawn to the moon... you can get lost in the sheer amount to see there. I think the lunar 100 beckons.

Clear skies all.

[Siriusmeg]

I can highly recommend the Lunar 100 - a really interesting group of objects, plenty of easy & some tricky to find It's really making me learn my way around the Moon -sounds like you know a fair bit already

[Aronnax]

[...] -sounds like you know a fair bit already

Thanks Siriusmeg, "a fair bit" might be a bit optimistic but the moon was one of the first things I started looking at properly when I fell in love with astronomy as a young boy. Never really had a plan for observing it though, so the Lunar 100 might give me a good target to aim for over the months/years!

[Moonshane]

Clavius is one of my favourite craters on the moon especially when close to the terminator.