Amazed by the moon

[Kon]

The seeing has been really stable the past few days and the moon has finally got my attention. It is the first night that I had WOW moments with it using my 8" Dob. It looked so crisp and steady even with my 8mm EP and 2x barlow. What got my attention, and I had to come get my wife out, was the Arristillus and Walther craters near the terminator. The Arristillus amazed me since I could make out some of the crater debris around it. The Walther was the second Wow; it was the shadow inside the crater. On my head, in order to see this shadow on my telescope that peak must be high; coming back and an internet search suggested 10,000 feet with a crater of 100 miles!! 

I am not going to snob it again over faint nebulas. I have attached some quick pics i took with my DSLR and Dob.

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Kon

[Dark Vader]

The moon is an amazingly beautiful thing to observe. I've been out for an hour the last 3 nights looking at the moon but tonight I set up a smartphone mount with the 8" Dob. First few attempts with a phone camera...

[Sunshine]

42 minutes ago, Dark Vader said:

The moon is an amazingly beautiful thing to observe. I've been out for an hour the last 3 nights looking at the moon but tonight I set up a smartphone mount with the 8" Dob. First few attempts with a phone camera...

Fantastic phone shots!

[Z3JohnLB]

Also managed a smart phone photo last night on my new 8" dob. Very pleased with it.

[reezeh]

I posted 7 photos last night / this morning. Taken with a C4R refractor and Olympus Pen-F, single exposures.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/376079-tonights-moon-439/

 

Yesterday was first light with that scope. I know they're not perfect by far, but even though looking grainy one of those actually surprised me at the detail I have caught.  And I'm certainly no astrotog. If anything I did find a few problems: mainly that the focuser can't take the weight of what I hung on it, giving quite a lot of shift. Not surprising though as it was a crazy train. Then I need a shorter way of mounting camera to telescope, which might reduce the shift quite considerably. 

I'm tempted to set up the C8 or even the C11 if it stays clear, but now I've said that it'll be cloud-out nation. 

[reezeh]

9 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Fantastic phone shots!

I won't argue with that 

[Luke]

The seeing seemed decent our way two nights ago for the moon! Nice clear views at 300x mag. Even with 85mm aperture I could see so much detail! Some of the DSO stuff is mindblowing but also pretty faint and I really like being able to see the moon with such clarity.

[Nik271]

On 19/04/2021 at 22:30, Kon said:

The seeing has been really stable the past few days and the moon has finally got my attention. It is the first night that I had WOW moments with it using my 8" Dob. It looked so crisp and steady even with my 8mm EP and 2x barlow. What got my attention, and I had to come get my wife out, was the Arristillus and Walther craters near the terminator. The Arristillus amazed me since I could make out some of the crater debris around it. The Walther was the second Wow; it was the shadow inside the crater. On my head, in order to see this shadow on my telescope that peak must be high; coming back and an internet search suggested 10,000 feet with a crater of 100 miles!! 

I am not going to snob it again over faint nebulas. I have attached some quick pics i took with my DSLR and Dob.

 

 

 

Indeed Walther has a spectacular shadow of the central peak when  on the terminator. I enjoyed looking at that too. Here is my image. This one is with a 7 inch Mak and a DSLR camera attached to the telescope in prime focus. You need a T-ring and a Barlow and some processing and your 8 inch Dob can get similar results.

 

[Kon]

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

Indeed Walther has a spectacular shadow of the central peak when  on the terminator. I enjoyed looking at that too. Here is my image. This one is with a 7 inch Mak and a DSLR camera attached to the telescope in prime focus. You need a T-ring and a Barlow and some processing and your 8 inch Dob can get similar results.

Thank you Nik. Your pic is very nice and sharp. I am kind of limited by my barlow; although I have a 2x barlow it is not threaded to accept attachments, I may have to invest one a new one at some point, thus the heavy zoom in to show the feature. Even last night the seeing was not too bad despite the thin haze.