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Lunar Treasures


John

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Really excellent seeing conditions tonight allowed "silly" magnifications (ie: 300x plus) to be used even with my 100mm refractor. The moon is looking serene at 62% illumination.

So many wonderful targets to enjoy tonight. I'll just mention here highlights in and around the Mare Nubium:

- The Rupes Recta (AKA the "Straight Wall") and nearby the delicate Rimae Birt. At high magnifications the "wall" really is not that "straight" !

- Crater Alpetragius with it's bulbous interior mass - some say it looks like a giant egg set in the craters floor. To me it resembles a huge hi fi base speaker cone too :icon_biggrin:

- Crater Arzachel which seems to bring together a range of classic lunar crater features in one place - finely terraced walls, a distinctive central peak complex, floor craters and a curving rille for good measure.

- Crater Davy sitting on the edge of the of the indistinct but much larger Davy Y but most interesting of all the remarkable crater chain known as Catena Davy. a chain of 23 small craters in a straight line that run right across Davy Y and out over it's crumbled rim. Thought to have been formed by a multiple impact event where the impacting body broke up before hitting the surface.

- The long straight "highway" of the Hesiodus Rille that runs for 300 km across the lunar surface.

- Crater Pitatus with rilles along the foot of it's walls on two sides.

- The immense and ruined crater Deslandres with Hell (crater) on one side and another fine Catena (crater chain) comprising of 5 craters gradually diminishing in diameter on the opposite side.

And so much more besides !

How's this for a great view of Catena Davy snapped by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and then projected onto the lunar surface in Google Earth :grin:

M119896473ME-Davy-Catena-Davy-WAC-400x740.png.22ab37cda5fee68ae8bc2c5ea98eec77.png

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by John
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That was a great report John, I really enjoyed reading it. Pleased you had such a good session.  I had, unexpectedly, some clear sky from 6.45pm to 7.30pm. I spent much of the time watching the sunrise over Copernicus 🙂.

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17 minutes ago, paulastro said:

That was a great report John, I really enjoyed reading it. Pleased you had such a good session.  I had, unexpectedly, some clear sky from 6.45pm to 7.30pm. I spent much of the time watching the sunrise over Copernicus 🙂.

Thanks Paul - I've really enjoyed tonight and I'm glad you have had some fun as well :icon_biggrin:

I'm loosing my clearer patches now with more and more clouds starting too intrude so I'll be bringing things to a conclusion shortly.

I've just been looking at Gamma Leonis at 450x (which is a bit nuts :rolleyes2:) - amazingly well defined airy disks with a very fine single diffraction ring around each star. Rather lovely. I could have done with some more nights like this when Mars was at opposition.

 

 

 

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Great report, the moon is very high which has been good. I have been out for a second go at the moon with the vx14 in one evening. I had a hot mirror (hot as in not cooled down!) so had some wobbles but with the aperture stopped down and staying at about 150x it was looking good.

I got transfixed on thea area from Copernicus to Stadia and the chain of small craters near Stadia.

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