Near the western moon limb

[Nyctimene]

Last evening, to make use of a clear night before the announced storm (Sun-Mon.), I placed the 8" f/4 Hofheim traveldob on it's equatorial platform and had, despite rather poor seeing, an hour of pleasure along the western limb regions. The terminator was just behind the crater Riccioli, and I studied with 100x mag it's (in contrast to nearby Grimaldi) rugged floor with two eccentric mountains and terraced walls. Next to it, I observed the well known (to me) crater trio Lohrmann, Hevelius and Cavalerius with it's pointed oval form. Close by, the 5.2 mag star Mu Cancri was approaching the moon's dark limb, and disappeared 22.37 CET. The seeing got better after 20 mins, and the  Rima Sirsalis could be made out well with mags 150x and finally 200x (Hyperion zoom 8 mmf+ Zeiss Abbe 2x Barlow). The same went for the Catena Krafft between craters Krafft and Cardanus, that presented as an uninderrupted rille. I went back to Sirsalis, and could make out, close to it's southern part, rilles on the floor of Darwin. The "21st Century Atlas of the Moon" pointed me (pg.62) to half a dozen of dark lava patches south of Vieta, that were quite obvious, as well as two similar regions within Schickard. The Inghirami crater SW of it was clearly visible, including a N-S rille; but I was not able to make out the famous Inghirami valley  (Lunar 100 No. 97) W of it - I will have to wait for a favourable libration to spot it. I finished at 23.15 with  Hansteen, Billy and the Arrowhead. All in all, a quite nice session, supported by the tracked Dob, electrical hand warmers and a voice recorder instead of taking notes by hand.

Thanks for reading

Stephan