Luna, 12/04/14

[nightfisher]

Finally the dreaded Queensbury cloud lifted and i managed to get the TAL out for some Luna work, i would have got the 150 mak out but planned on doing some Luna imaging, and the Moon would have more than filled the frame with the mak!

Seeing conditions where very good but only had a short session after taking some frames with the camera, i mounted the TAL on the AZ4 and i used a mix of Circle T ortho`s, my BGO 18mm and interestingly i also used a new to me skywatcher 25mm smoothside plossl that gave very sharp views with a slight warm cast to the tone, in fact it was hard to seperate the plossl from the 25mm ortho, but in the end i felt the view was just a tad nicer in the ortho.

Plato in the mare imbrium was very sharp as was Copernicus and of course the mighty Tycho, but i found myself drawn to Ptolemaeus and its adjoining craters including Herschel  and Davey and Alphonsus.

All in all a short but rather enjoyable session, i have to say there are many times when i feel i could abandon other objects and just concentrate purely on Luna work, both visual and imaging, as the moon always has and always will be my main target in the night sky 

[TwoPi]

Nice report & photo Jules.

Forecast for tonight is good in my area so fingers crossed will be spending some time looking at the Moon too, plus using my new copy of Sky Safari Pro to help navigate my way around and identify some of the features I always end up struggling with!

[Pig]

As above Jules very nice indeed

[Marki]

Nice report Jules - and a lovely photo too. Moon was indeed looking lovely last night (before the cloud came). Staying away with relatives, and was able to show them a few sights before we packed up (took my 80mm apo with me), and they really loved the moon.  They kept asking me what stuff was called, and I didn't know () so now I really need to improve my lunar geography!

[nightfisher]

Cheers Marki, Lunar geography is near impossible to learn, other than a few major features, like tycho plato and such, i have to refer to a handbook for other ones, often the next day, i will study an area, then try to keep features in my mind, then next day i will look them up in a guide, some times i might look up some features prior to starting a session then track these down