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Warthog's lunar wanderings, April 16 & 18, 2008


The Warthog

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April 16th, 2008

Moon waxing gibbous.

Sky clear, temperature about 15. No appreciable wind.

Scope and ep, C6N with 4.3mm W70, 174x.

The W70 was giving excellent views. I started out looking in the Tycho area. Tycho was already in full sun. Hainzel and Hainzell B were nicely shown. Seeing was a little off, with some boiling going on at the surface. Decided that more power would be a waste of time. There was a valley-like feature to the west of Hainzel and co., and this turned out to be crater Schiller, which I believed is named after a poet, the "German Shakespeare," but is actually named after a 17th century German Monk who wrote the "Coelum Stellarum Christianus Atlas," or "Christian Atlas of Heavenly Stars" which arranged the heavens into Bible inspired constellations. It wasn't a hit. Schiller appears very elongated in the scope, because it is. There is a ruined looking crater called Mee near the Hainzel twins, and it is described in VMA as being totally ruined.

Moving along, we encounter Mare Humorum, and along the west edge is a well-defined scarp called Rupes Liebig, which is just past the terminator at this point. Moving north, we see Gassendi, with its wonderful little rim crater, Gassendi A. At these magnifications and seeing, the Gass. A looks like a perfect oval, although all the maps show more detail in it. This may have something to do with the still-low level of illumination on it.

Moving northward, we come into Oceanus Procellarum. Along the terminator we can see the small crater Wichman, and Flamsteed right on the Terminator. To the south of each of these craters are wrinkle ridges Dorsa Ewing and Dorsa Rubey, respectively. I had a couple of doubts about the identification of these, and spent a bit of time on these items. Dorsa Ewing was pretty easy to define in spite of the seeing, but Dorsa Rubey was a little more sketchy.

Procellarum is a bit featureless with this seeing, so I went on down to Sinus Iridium, and the craters around it. As my map was designed for use with a refractor and star diagonal, it's a little confusing to name the craters around it. Finally got it straightened out, with Bianchini to the north, on the rim of Iridium, and Sharp to the west. To the east are Maupertuis (anybody's guess how you pronounce that, it sounds different in French and Latin,) and the wonderfully named La Condamine, which I am pretty sure means 'the condemned,' but is actually the name of a dead Frenchman. I would have changed my name. Note Bouquer and Harpalus, making a right angled triangle with Bianchini.

I've noticed an interesting phenomenon, that when the scope is moving in RA or dec, the features on the Moon appear clearer than when the scope is still. Has anyone else experienced this?

I was looking for the headlands on the 'horns' of Sinus Iridium, and was able to make them out, "Promontorium Laplace" on the east and "Promontorium Heraclides" (named after another scientist, not the Greek mythological hero) on the west.

Going a little south along the terminator, Aristarchus is just on the terminator. I am still trying to make out the dark bands on the floor of the crater. Maybe I can see just a hint of them, but not enough to confirm seeing them.

Going over east of Iridium, I can see the rectangular form of Montes Recti (Straight Mountains, eh? Get yer mind out o't' gutter!) And further east, near Plato, I can see the Montes Teneriffe, which I think are cool because one of the formations looks like a bird's foot. To me, anyway.

Decided to call it a night.

April 18th

9:30 PM

Temp about 15

Slightly hazy sky, poor seeing

I am finding that the motors aren't keeping up with the Moon, so I think I will have to change batteries soon, but with all the shifting about I am doing, it doesn't matter much. I have been trying for an hour, at various magnifications, to see the bands on the floor of Aristarchus. Very high magnifications (~360x) don't return very good results in this sky and seeing, I've been trying at 200x and not seen anything like a dark band (maybe Black Sabbath? ;) )

Moving right along, took a look at Tycho, which is a wonderful bright splash in the 7x50 finder, and in the scope the rays from the crater are very sharp.

Spent some time trying Tycho again, but my bar chair started sinking in the mud, forcing me to move it and risk my life trying to sit on it. The reduced speed of the motors was beginning to get to me, and about this time I found my tape recorder doesn't have any buttons on it to control the motors with. I'm glad no-one is looking when I doing most of my observing.

I was having undue difficulty focusing, possibly due to the seeing, and also the fact that the scope quivers like a stripper in a rock bar when you touch the focuser at 360x. I went back to 200x, then had to deal with my son's dog suddenly going into a barking frenzy.

I started along the terminator, and had just picked out Eddington coming out of the terminator in the northwest, and Seluecus beside it, and already somewhat washed out, indicating to me that its walls are fairly low, when I discovered that the dog's outburst was the result of my older daughter's arrival, which cut tonight's observing mercifully short.

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Fine report WH

The thing I really like about your lunar roving is that it gives me a kick in the butt to get out of the house and do the same. I must do a search in past threads to figure out the best maps to get - if anyone has recommendations, feel free.

AG

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:hello1: It's great to see that you're getting out again WH, and thanks for sharing your eyepiece with us!

Two of my Aristarchus sketches show the internal spokes quite clearly, and they were both done when the seeing was an Antoniadi III (moderate, with large tremors). The eyepiece used with the 8" SCT was a 9mm UO ortho, which gives me 222x. My notes indicate that the spokes were best seen in calmer moments, though.

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Yeah, I've left my orthos in the case for the last little while, but maybe I should try again. I was getting glimpses of what may have really wanted to be dark matter on the floor of the crater, but I couldn't see it well enough to say for sure that it was.

Tonight's going to be carp, so it may be a couple of days until I try again.

Thanks, KK et al. I'm feeling well enough to go hit a bucket of balls every couple of days, without undue strain, so I'm coming along well. Not ready to walk a golf course yet, not for a while. But staring through the Newt isn't too bad.

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