Worth the wait

[John]

At last the moon has risen into clear sky, away from the trees and rooftops.

I'm using my 4" ED Vixen refractor to explore the terminator especially in the area of Mare Tranquillitatis and the Taurus Mountains.

Superb detail is showing on the lunar surface. The Cauchy Rille and Fault are finely etched across the surface with the pair of curious pancake shaped domes to the south of the fault. Theophilis looks magnificent with it's central peaks split by deep and dark ravines.

On the edge of the Taurus Mountains the fractured floor of the large crater Posidonius shows it's fine rilles and prominent curved ridge. Southwards past the bay-like crater Le Monnier, amongst the mountains the dark Taurus-Littrow valley can be seen. This was the site of the last manned lunar landing - Apollo 17.

So much detail in this area to take in. Wonderful

Here is an image of Posidonius captured by the Apollo 17 Command Module 45 years ago:

 

[Ibbo!]

I too had some decent seeing for a short while.

Had a quick look at the moon, it looked steady so i  then grabbed the cam.

 

Then i went over to the trapezium with the FS102 and with the tak LE's 5mm and 3.8 giving x164 & x215 E was quite easy but I missed out on F.

 

i forgot how i like the LE's on the 102 classic airy discs when in focus.

[Luna-tic]

Oh, how I wish it were a bit warmer tonight; I'd be out there doing what you were doing, John. Moonrise here was about 9:45PM EST; I went to our public viewing tonight at the observatory and got first light with my new 80mm APO, split the Trapezium at 60X and called it a night at 8:45. It was only 19* at 7:30, but I would dearly have loved to see some craters tonight.

[Pete Presland]

No sooner had Jupiter and Mars cleared the roof tops, the clouds arrived to spoil the view. Up the same time tomorrow.......

[mikeDnight]

[domstar]

A beautiful, inspiring description. It really explains what is behind lunar observation. I'm still not far away from ' Oh look, there's the moon' school of lunar observing, but I'm gradually learning more and reports like this point the way.

[mikeDnight]

[John]

Bad luck Mike