Have you seen that moon!

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Been out viewing for a bit. Seeing was very poor tonight. Managed a look at Venus and the near by Uranus but they were not great unfortunately. So a change of tack and down to low power for a bit of moon viewing.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Barry-W-Fenner

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Just had a look at the crescent moon, it looks totally stunning. The terminator line is creating a beautiful shadow showing lots of detail.

Venus also looking great at dusk, the phase very clear.

I also located the trapezium around 6.45pm. It was really good seeing it without the surrounding nebula. Very unusual seeing the 4 main stars alone.

 

Baz

 

[Stu]

1 minute ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Just had a look at the crescent moon, it looks totally stunning. The terminator line is creating a beautiful shadow showing lots of detail.

Venus also looking great at dusk, the phase very clear.

I also located the trapezium around 6.45pm. It was really good seeing it without the surrounding nebula. Very unusual seeing the 4 main stars alone.

 

Baz

 

Yep, been out looking at it in the 8” and the little Telementor, lovely stuff. This is a shot through the Telementor.

[mikeDnight]

I've just made a sketch of Petavius through the binoviewer with 2X barlow and 25mm Parks Gold. The view was glorious and the wrinkle ridges south of Crisium were spectacular.  Then I popped in the 3.4mm HR and using my mobile hand held against the eyepiece took a pic of Mare Crisium. Eat your heart out Damian Peach! Next time I might even try and get things in focus!!

Edited March 27, 2020 by mikeDnight

[John]

Looks like the view you might expect to get from a spacecraft approaching the moon Mike - nice one

[Stu]

15 minutes ago, John said:

Looks like the view you might expect to get from a spacecraft approaching the moon Mike - nice one

Yes, looks like it is taken out of a porthole window 😄😄, amazing shot Mike.

[paulastro]

Well done Mike, it's not easy to hold a phone's camera lens to the eyepiece of a telescope - that's why I take prime focus snaps of the Moon 😃.

[mikeDnight]

Just looked at my phone's camera lens and it was filthy. 

[Dave1]

The moon was beautiful tonight, I spent some considerable time looking at it through my Skylight 60mm. Seeing conditions were so good tonight I went up to a 4 mm eyepiece in a 60mm telescope for 251x ! Compared my 4 mm Ortho to my 4 mm Ramsden. I spent a lot of time looking at Mare Crisium and Cleomedes and all the rocky formation around there. 

 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Just had a quick half hour bouncing around anything I could find between the cloud. The moon look excellent again such a rich object to explore. I haven't really watched its phase grown up until now, I am shocked at how much further over the shadow has moved from last night. The terminator is a lot further over! I will try and continue to watch the phase grow over the next couple of weeks.

Also had a look at M45, big B, castor and pollux all at a fairly low x100 power. Wasn't much point changing eye pieces as the cloud consumed all. I just took in what sites I could!

Baz

[Stu]

33 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Just had a quick half hour bouncing around anything I could find between the cloud. The moon look excellent again such a rich object to explore. I haven't really watched its phase grown up until now, I am shocked at how much further over the shadow has moved from last night. The terminator is a lot further over! I will try and continue to watch the phase grow over the next couple of weeks.

Also had a look at M45, big B, castor and pollux all at a fairly low x100 power. Wasn't much point changing eye pieces as the cloud consumed all. I just took in what sites I could!

Baz

Good again wasn't it Baz?

Posted elsewhere too, but I took these this evening through my little 63mm. Lovely earthshine.

[mikeDnight]

Very nice images there Stu.  I took a look myself early evening but the seeing was like looking through a fast moving river. Max power I could use was 118X, so after half an hour I packed up. It was freezing cold too, or I'm getting soft!

[Stu]

6 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Very nice images there Stu.  I took a look myself early evening but the seeing was like looking through a fast moving river. Max power I could use was 118X, so after half an hour I packed up. It was freezing cold too, or I'm getting soft!

It was certainly chilly out there in the wind! Seeing wasn’t too bad around here although I was only using the 63mm and powers of x150 max, but mostly below x100. x35 with the 24mm Panoptic was the most beautiful view though, lovely earthshine and several background stars in the field.

[Rob]

The Moon was so good last night. I had the Revelation ED80 out for a run!... took this handheld image at the eyepiece (14mm Meade 5000 ep). Windy - Yes. Fun Observing - Yes!

 

[johninderby]

The clouds spoiled things last night. Got about ten minutes total lunar viewing. Was clear for a minute then the clouds would come back. In the few clear moments seeing was pretty good though.

The StellaMira 80mm f/10 is proving to be a great grab’n’go scope that still gives good views without much cooldown and the counterbalance system added to the photo head / tripod setup was very effective. 👍🏻

Edit:

Details of the counterbalance system to follow in the mounts section.

Edited March 29, 2020 by johninderby

[Stu]

Nicely done @Rob, these little grab and go setups are ideal for quick sessions when conditions are a bit dodgy! I had to scramble everything inside at one point yesterday evening when a light shower came over.

[Waddensky]

Very nice pictures! I really enjoyed the Moon and Venus last night between the clouds.

[Barry-W-Fenner]

10 hours ago, Stu said:

Good again wasn't it Baz?

Posted elsewhere too, but I took these this evening through my little 63mm. Lovely earthshine.

Excellent shots there Stu. You always manage to capture great detail with your equipment!

Baz

[Stu]

10 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Excellent shots there Stu. You always manage to capture great detail with your equipment!

Baz

Why thank you kind sir! ☺️

[Rob]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Nicely done @Rob, these little grab and go setups are ideal for quick sessions when conditions are a bit dodgy! I had to scramble everything inside at one point yesterday evening when a light shower came over.

Thanks @Stu.. they really are a treat. And for me keep my hobby alive!.

Grrr I hate those scramble moments to duck the rain. I always feel that I'm going to drop something... I have now bought a BBQ cover to quickly throw over the mount after removing the OTA. It also has a heat layer (silver lined on the inside) and a nice pull string to wrap round the tripod legs. Mind you if its really coming down...back to the scramble 😄

I think the cover was a whole £9!

Oh BTW I omitted to say I was using an Orion Shorty Plus 2 x APO barlow with the Meade 14mm EP

Edited March 29, 2020 by Rob
Added Content

[Barry-W-Fenner]

[markse68]

This feature really caught my eye earlier on in the evening- would love to know how it formed as it presented a bizarre vision of a gigantic fish skeleton with vertical filaments catching the light! It looks like maybe something moving horizontal gouged a path between the craters 🤷‍♂️

[markse68]

And this arc of smaller craters each with similar central peaks catching the light. I wonder if they all formed together in a shower of meteorite impacts?

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Evening all.
Just had a quick twenty mins with the 8" dob before the cloud rolled in. I am still not familiar with the names of moon objects but I couldn't believe the height you could see in the curved mountain range tonight. It looked amazing and had a real sense of depth to the lip. The pics don't really do it justice.

 

 

[Barry-W-Fenner]