Have any of you seen this Lunar object?

[Doc]

Last night got me thinking I read in Astronomy Now mag and via VMA that Catena Timocharis was a very hard and challenging moon object to see. According to VMA you needed 500mm of aperture. Thats a 20" scope so off course I had to try with my 16" just to see if I can capture it.

It is quite easy to find the Crater Timocharis it had only emerged from the terminator yesterday, it is a bowl shaped crater 23 miles in diameter. It stands isolated on the Mare Imbrium midway between Archimedes and Lambert. It dates from the Eratosthenian period of about 3.2 to 1.1 billion years ago.

I placed my 6mm Orthoscopic Telescope House eyepiece into the focuser this gives me a magnifcation of X304. I could see it's steep walls, rising about 7,000 feet above a very deep crater floor. No detail could be made out on the floor but the walls were bathed in reflected white light, it looked truly magnificent.

I then turned my eye to finding this elusive Catena Timocharis, unlike it's parent it only dates from the Copernician period of between 1.1 billion years to the present time. It was easy to find Timocharis B and just below this crater I could just make out what looked like a very small montain range, which I garthered was Catena Timocharis.

The 6mm Ortho could only just make out this rille like object. So I put my 4mm Orthoscopic in, this has a magnifcation off x457. A little to much for the scope as it was pretty hard to view between the dampening down issues I was having. But I definetly saw Catena Timocharis but could not distinguish between mountains are craters.

So maybe you do need a 500mm aperture for this object after all, but I was very pleased to have seen this very elusive object.

So have any of you lot seen this?

Also has anyone got any list of difficult lunar objects that need 400mm plus to see them.

[kniclander]

I haven't and I probably won't cos my scope is too small but well done to you for finding it - the best way to look at the moon (IMHO) is to decide first what you are going to look for .

ps, x457 in a dob :shock: - it must be like watching F1.....

[jamesFSO]

Do you have a drawing of it so i can see what it looks like.

[Lady Isabella]

Here is a image of the crater chain.

http://www.luna.e-cremona.it/chains.htm