20 Mins. On The Moon: Fauth & Cop. H

[cloudsweeper]

7.30am, Moon high south, waning crescent, just past 3rd quarter, sky lightening rapidly.  ED80 on GoTo.

My favoutite Plato was on the terminator, but its floor was in shadow.  x48.

Copernicus was somewhat west of the terminator, showing all its familiar detail (floor very clear) to good effect.  x80.  The view was much dimmer at x160, largely because the brightness of the Moon itself was falling by then.  x120 was a good compromise mag.

South of Cop. lay Fauth, a pair of small, overlapping impact craters (larger one to north).  This stood out really well, both craters being shadow-filled against the silvery background.

Finally, west of a line between Fauth and Cop. was Copernicus H, a small dark "halo crater" (impact, not volcanic), which appeared as a very small dark spot.

After 20 minutes, detail was fading rapidly, session over.  Great start to the day!

Doug.

 

 

 

[Nyctimene]

Nice review of a short session. I love crater Fauth with it's distinctive "keyhole" shape, and always have a look at it when passing Copernicus. Fauth's "Großer Mondatlas"  is the extraordinary creation of "the last of the great selenographers to map the moon by hand and eye". The atlas (priced now at 2.500€!) was displayed for a diameter of 3,5 metres; have a look at the map of the Mare Imbrium region:

Stephan