Surprise moon

[John]

Solid cloud cover about 30 minutes ago but just cleared so I popped the 100mm Tak out to have a quick look at the moon.

Lovely phase with superb and delicate "beads" of illuminated terrain at the southern cusp leading on to the darkened disk faintly glowing with earthshine.

Bad mobile phone snap but it was hurried and I'm no imager (obviously)

Much sharper through the eyepiece though

 

Edited April 16, 2021 by John

[cloudsweeper]

Nice going John.  I was attracted by the Moon, but there are huge trees to my west!!

Doug.

[John]

3 minutes ago, cloudsweeper said:

Nice going John.  I was attracted by the Moon, but there are huge trees to my west!!

Doug.

My house is to the west of my patch of the garden but the moon was been just above the roofline for a while. And Mars above it too. Mars very small disk now. I can see the phase and suggestions of dark features at 300x but it's darned hard work !

 

Edited April 16, 2021 by John

[Luke]

Looks a good phone shot to me, I can never get anything with my phone! Though I can imagine your Tak is sharper 

I will be temped to have a peek today at the moon if the opportunity is there, probably with my 100mm and 85mm dual-mounted, then into the night session with the pair. If it's clear!

I was wondering about Mars too, sounds like not to expect too much!

Edited April 17, 2021 by Luke

[Luke]

I enjoyed a daytime moon today, taking care to place the scope well in the shade so it was impossible to accidentally catch the sun. I used my ED100 and 8mm, 5mm and 3mm Tele Vue Radian eyepieces.

Contrast was a bit low but I seemed to get used to it and it was a relaxing experience out in nice weather.

The 3mm gave me 300x mag and I was especially happy with it. I could then resolve the craters at the top of the crescent easily. I hadn't used the 3mm Radian much before.

I bought it later than the 5mm and 8mm having enjoyed those so much for solar especially and lunar. And the 3mm looks lovely for my ED100.

Gosh, clear forecast again tonight. Hope to get the 85mm out as well!

A nice plus, while sitting out I noticed a bird of prey gliding overhead and grabbed my bins which I haven't used for years. The bird was beautiful, I hope to ID it later, and then I watched a human bird later performing inverted loop the loops etc in the distance. Very entertaining! My son had fun with the bins too and had a look at the moon with them.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Luke