Lunar cobwebs

[Nyctimene]

When I pointed the 18" Obsession at the moon this morning 01.15 CEST, I immediately recognized, that my intention, to spot the elusive Rima Messier again, would certainly fail. The seeing was rather bad; the nearby Rimae Secchi ( easier than R. Messier) could not be made out, and the floor-fracture rilles of Taruntius showed only for seconds. After half an hour of waiting for an improvement of seeing without avail, I returned to lower mags and meandered with 100x across the moon's still almost full lit surface. The crater ray systems were eye-catching, as usual near full moon; so I visited the large ones of Tycho, Copernicus, Kepler and Aristarch, that presented themselves as a cobweb of thicker and finer filaments with the bright central crater amidst. My attention was soon directed to smaller and less conspicuous systems, as Aristillus, Anaxagoras far in the north, Byrgius A and Glushko near the western limb (the last three with small and very bright craters at the ejecta's center). I finished with the crater Lichtenberg and it's ray system, that seems to have been flooded by lava  to the SE direction.

Different lava floor colours were also conspicuous; Mare Serenitatis appeared more brown tinted, whereas Mare Tranquillitatis  showed very dark grey in my eyes, with a sharp border N of Plinius.

I was pleased to look up all the crater ray systems in the 21st Century Atlas of the Moon (the Full Moon section) later. So, this time, no rilles, craters, catenae etc, but still a nice haul of rewarding lunar targets. Pleased, and so to bed at 03.00.

Thanks for reading.

Stephan

[MarsG76]

Nicely written report.....