30th March Moon spectacular

[mikeDnight]

What a spectacular lunation it was this evening, not only because of the detail but also because of the clarity of the view. The attached pics were just snapped with my mobile phone camera through my 100mm refractor. I hope they give at least an idea of how great the views were. As always, the view through the eyepiece was significantly sharper, but its only a cheap plastic camera lens, so hope you'll allow for the amateur attempt at hand held phone imaging.

Feel free to add your own images if you've taken any.

25mm Parks Gold, X30. 

3.4mm Vixen HR, X218

1.6mm Vixen HR, X463. Showing Rima Ariadaeus. But notice too the fine rima running parallel to the left of the main rima. This was laser etched in the eyepiece but sadly hard to see in the i-phone image.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by mikeDnight

[markse68]

Yes- for past few days- well since it first showed really it’s been fantastically clear and beautiful hasn’t it! Don’t know if it’s just the high pressure we’ve been in or  probably a combination of that with the significantly lower pollution but every evening’s been glorious.

21 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

What a spectacular lunation it was this evening

 

 

 

Tonight between clouds I explored the terminator region with my xw3.5 for 460x and the view was crisp and detailed- didn’t take any pics but spent a good amount of time on that crack. The longer I looked the more I saw- they say that don’t they 😉

Edited March 30, 2020 by markse68

[mikeDnight]

It's a fascinating feature, and so much sharper in the eyepiece than in the image. I'm glad I'm not the only observer who's nutty enough to throw 460X at the Moon. 

[MarkAR]

Nice close ups lads, let us know if you spot any flags or lander left overs.

[mikeDnight]

11 hours ago, MarkAR said:

Nice close ups lads, let us know if you spot any flags or lander left overs.

Now that's just silly! But that 1.6mm Vixen HR with a 2X Barlow did show this!!

 

 

[Fozzie]

Nice photo's, I've not managed a observing session with the scope, however when i popped out last night to to watch the ISS and Star;ink, i was taken back at the number of stars and clarity visually, so not shocked to see those mags on the moon, with such an nice frac.

Reminds me of "the beast from the east" a few years back when i got over 450x from my starwave.

I do wonder though, how much of this recent good seeing/stability is atmospheric or down to the lack of pollution? and whether the two are that connected, ones impacting the other.

I'll live on the flight path for most of the traffic out of Europe to america, the lack of air traffic is surreal TBH.  

[mikeDnight]

The planes being grounded really makes a difference. When the Icelandic volcanic eruption occurred years ago now, they grounded the planes, and the seeing was spectacular. If I had my way, I'd ground the monstrous polluting machines permenantly.  As well as cutting down atmospheric pollution, it would play a massive part in stifling the spread of disease. 

[Fozzie]

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

 As well as cutting down atmospheric pollution, it would play a massive part in stifling the spread of disease. 

can't argue with that, when you look at apps like flight radar there is still a massive amount of air travel going on, a lot of its freight but theirs enough of it that isn't..

 

[paulastro]

Mike, I've attached a photo taken last night of the rille you imaged.  It's a crop of a single frame taken with my SW 120ED, Olympus E-M5 Mk11, taken at 6.58 pm, 1/160 sec at 400 asa.

As you say an exceptional night, best I've had for two or three years!

[mikeDnight]

1 hour ago, paulastro said:

Mike, I've attached a photo taken last night of the rille you imaged.  It's a crop of a single frame taken with my SW 120ED, Olympus E-M5 Mk11, taken at 6.58 pm, 1/160 sec at 400 asa.

As you say an exceptional night, best I've had for two or three years!

That's nice Paul.  I've put them side by side for easier comparison. I noticed that in the Tak/i-phone image at 463X, the parallel rille running alongside Rima Ariadaeus is visible. In the eyepiece this was extremely sharp but the phone camera, and hand held lack of skill on my part, has blurred the view.

[paulastro]

Thanks Mike.  There also look to be things on my pic which don't show up in yours.  Visually it was much better for me too of course.  Also, remember, yours is a photo taken at high magnification, mine is just an enlargement of a prime focus image of only x36.  Quite a difference.

[mikeDnight]

1 hour ago, paulastro said:

Thanks Mike.  There also look to be things on my pic which don't show up in yours.  Visually it was much better for me too of course.  Also, remember, yours is a photo taken at high magnification, mine is just an enlargement of a prime focus image of only x36.  Quite a difference.

There's also quite a time difference between the images. Although I didn't actually pay attention to the time of my images, I'm reasonably certain they were around 9.30pm (20.30 UT) ish, as opposed to your 17.58UT☺

Edited March 31, 2020 by mikeDnight

[paulastro]

Yes, I was tucked up back indoors by then 🌝