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Ice tea on the balcony- Luna 25/2/18


domstar

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Bitter, bitter weather all weekend but not a speck of frost on the cars suggested perfect transparency as I set up in minus twelve on the balcony. I was wrapped up like a Michelin man but I wasn't looking for stars, as the moon was casting shadows at 77 percent. The seeing wasn't perfect but I had no problems at 125x. As I settled down in my chair, I heard a bang and I noticed that due to lack of space and my layers, I'd clumsily knocked my tea all over the floor. I quickly set about it with a sponge soaking my gloves in the process. It wasn't long before there was a patch of ice under the tripod. 

Anyway, what a lovely phase this is. I had checked out virtual moon map and had some targets, which really helped my focus. Copernicus is, of course, wonderful and for the first time I noticed short periods of exceptional seeing when the detail was astounding. I'd heard about this for Newtonians but this was true in my frac. I love the mountains- Montes Recti, Mons La Hire and Montes Carpatus. In the last of those three I love the crater T Mayer A. It seems funny to me that a meteor should land on top of a mountain range and leave a big circle in the middle. 

I think my favourite targets of the night were the volcanic domes. I would have no way of noticing any of them if it wasn't for the information on virtual moon map and the terminator function. I managed to see Dome Kies Pi after a lot of popping inside to check the location (and to put my gloves on the radiator) and I saw two domes of Hortensius Omega. It's amazing what you can see.

Actually, maybe the highlight was Rimae Hippalus. I saw three lines, one of which cut Hippalus in half- each half having a completely different texture. 

By ten o'clock I was shivering so I called it a night. A wonderful night. After I'd turned in I had to get up again to bathe my bloodless feet in warm water. I even dreamt about the moon. Nothing interesting, just silent snapshots of what I'd seen.

Thanks for reading.

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Nice work Dom.  (I too had a great session with the Moon last night - never mind X's and V's, I saw a seagull, formed by Dorsum Heim ridge with crater C Herschel in the middle for its head!  Even pushed the mag up to x339 with no problem.)

Luna never fails to please.

Doug.

 

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Nice report. Sorry about the spilt tea though! Yes, a great night for the mooon over in the UK last night. The seeing was exceptionally steady, in fact the best I’ve seen for a long while here. Got some great views in similar areas to where you were looking, and got some good shots too, which most I still need to process, but did this one last nigh showing the Tycho/Clavius are of the moon.

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45 minutes ago, domstar said:

Wow. That's a lot of mag. Tracking must be useful. What eyepiece do you use for that? 

My lovely 6mm TeleVue Radian in the 2032mm FL 8SE.  The view was still sharp, but focusing got critical, and of course the 'scope was susceptible to vibration.  

Nice to get to that level in good seeing!

Doug.

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