Great Lunar Detail With Lightish Sky

[cloudsweeper]

7.20 - 8.20 Monday.  Moon high, S, one day to first quarter.  Dob ideal for that altitude.  

Hipparchus and Albategnius (to its S) looked like good targets.  I played around with various mags, and dwelt a while at 7.50 using x30 / 2.15deg enjoying a wide view, plenty of detail, and a Moon against a blue backdrop.  

By 8.00, more detail was evident at x212.  View stable, less so at x254.  The fine detail in Hipparchus now jumped out - wrinkles, a number of really tiny pits, and terraces in the small crater Horrocks in the northern floor of Hipparchus.  Lovely.

Going north to Triesnecker, the Triesnecker Rilles were observed, looking like a very fine, long, letter K.

Further north again lay the small Hyginus with the much more pronounced Hyginus Rille curving right across it.

Splendid detail, with a light/lightish sky, and no lunar glare!

I'm off out again soon, doubles-spotting.

Hope others get some decent viewing in!

Doug.

 

[John]

It's no good Doug - you got me to get a scope out after I'd sworn that I would have a "night off"

You are dead right - the seeing is superb for lunar detail this evening

I'm glad your post was a "bad influence" on me !

[Nik271]

I too had a look at the Moon last evening and agree the seeing was excellent. I  used  the small 127mm Mak which was still on the tripod from the solar session earlier and was pleasantly surprised how much it showed. I started to enjoy more the full picture Moon viewed at less than 100x with binoviewers than 'the zoomed in' experience.

[vineyard]

Yes it was really nice last night wasn't it.  Albategnius was v nice as was Rima Hyginus <-- that looks like an interesting area to come back to (seems to be different from the surrounding terrain - found this this morning).  Only had a short time so just used the old Vixen 102M on an EZtouch (will post a quick grab in imaging).  It held 278x without breaking a sweat.  Also took a quick last peek at Castor A & B before packing up.  Short but v sweet session.