Schickard Lovely NOW

[cloudsweeper]

Moon (3 days to full) around SE in light sky - Schickard very near terminator, lit floor, many craterlets/pits (mainly to SW) quite clear.  A fine sight.  And I am using the 102S Frac -  a delight, really, with the AZ4 being so easy to use and swing about (easier than using the Skytee II).

Doug.

Edited April 25, 2021 by cloudsweeper

[John]

Yes, some lovely detail showing on the moon just now

Edited April 24, 2021 by John

[cloudsweeper]

37 minutes ago, John said:

Yes, some lovely detail showing on the moon just now

Yes John - I also saw Rupes Liebig in SW of Mare Humorum: the escarpment looked like a gash with a craterlet in the middle.  

Doug.

[Stu]

Looking good here too. Quick snap including Schickard and the craterlets you described. Very nice 👍👍

[Mr Spock]

It went cloudy before I could get that far south 

[Luke]

Schickard was a lovely sight! And I really enjoyed Babbage and especially the Aristarchus Plateau. I was wondering whether to observe tonight, then my wife made me do it by saying "What about using the Tele Vue 85?" I paired it up with the Tele Vue 60. It's been fun mixing things up this month, I've used all my scopes I think with possibly one exception - I think we might have a Telescope House 66mm up in the loft. That little frac had a lovely stock focuser, I can't imagine I would have parted with it.

I jumped a bit though when I used my 8mm Radian. I'd forgotten it had a solar continuum filter on, so I was greeted with a green moon!

Edited April 25, 2021 by Luke

[John]

Aristarchus looked wonderful tonight. The illumination caught the dark striation down the inner terraced walls of the crater. This is a HST image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys. My ED120 views showed the more obvious bits !:

 

Edited April 25, 2021 by John

[Stu]

5 hours ago, John said:

Aristarchus looked wonderful tonight. The illumination caught the dark striation down the inner terraced walls of the crater. This is a HST image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys. My ED120 views showed the more obvious bits !:

 

I love that effect in Aristarchus. It’s excellent in a larger scope, but even the Telementor showed it to a degree last night.

[Stu]

Bailly was also looking very dramatic right on the terminator, with Kircher, Bettinus and Zucchius just above.

[cloudsweeper]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

 I paired it up with the Tele Vue 60. It's been fun mixing things up this month, I've used all my scopes I think with possibly one exception - I think we might have a Telescope House 66mm up in the loft. 

Not done much "pairing" of 'scopes lately, but I have used all five of mine in the last fortnight with the Dob mount, the AZ4, and the GoTo.  I really enjoy the range of viewing experiences they offer.

Doug.

[Nik271]

Mons Rumker was also quite dramatic in the north with a big shadow.

For a change I tried the orange filter No 21, I saw this recommended for full Moon somewhere on the net. Seems to work on the bright parts of the Moon, not entirely convinced if the orange was making the difference or just any filter cutting out the glare.

But my seeing was poor, I stayed below 150x.

[chiltonstar]

Some brilliant views last night - best for me at x190 with a 180 Mak. Schickard was amazing, but even Copernicus was showing a lot of detail in the escarpments.

Chris

[Mr Spock]

I only managed Aristarchus before being clouded out. The wall bands were quite prominent and the whole thing a lovely sight. I was using my 120mm achro at x289.

[John]

1 hour ago, chiltonstar said:

Some brilliant views last night - best for me at x190 with a 180 Mak. Schickard was amazing, but even Copernicus was showing a lot of detail in the escarpments.

Chris

There are a couple of interesting dark patches in the ejecta from Copernicus. Copernicus H lies in the centre of one of them. It looked like a tiny bright edged pit surrounded by a darker halo of material last night. Not sure what the other one is called. I've arrowed them on this image by Andre van den Hoeven. They both stood out well under last nights illumination. At one point they were thought to be of volcanic origin but Lunar Orbiter images have showed that at least H is definitely of impact origin:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 25, 2021 by John

[Oldfort]

I'm not much of a lunar observer, but it was certainly good last night.

Here's a quick snap of Aristarchus and Herodotus.  I just neednto figure out how to reverse the mirror image.

(Done for you, Stu 👍)

 

 

[Mr Spock]

15 minutes ago, John said:

There are a couple of interesting dark patches in the ejecta from Copernicus.

There are a few other around there too. I wonder if this is a case of the impact bringing up ejecta from lower down which is darker in colour? Whatever they are it's an interesting contrast.

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Oldfort said:

I'm not much of a lunar observer, but it was certainly good last night.

Here's a quick snap of Aristarchus and Herodotus.  I just neednto figure out how to reverse the mirror image.

(Done for you, Stu 👍)

 

 

Done 👍

[vineyard]

Yes it was beautiful last night.  A relatively quick session w the Telementor 2, BV'd w 2.6x GPC - ran 18.2mm (120x) & 9mm (242x) EPs.  The image was rock steady - no mush (at 100x/inch aperture!) - I reckon it could have gone higher w/o a problem.  This scope is s/t else on the moon - the sharpness!

Schickard & Lacroix were v easy on the eye, the difference between Herodotus & Aristarchus is always something - @Nik271is also spot on Mons Rumker was just there looking mysterious & almost out of place rising like that from the plain, without any particularly bright reflections.

[Oldfort]

9 minutes ago, Stu said:

Done 👍

Thanks Stu. 

I've found out what to do now.  Just have to remember for next time.

[chiltonstar]

21 hours ago, John said:

There are a couple of interesting dark patches in the ejecta from Copernicus. Copernicus H lies in the centre of one of them. It looked like a tiny bright edged pit surrounded by a darker halo of material last night. Not sure what the other one is called. I've arrowed them on this image by Andre van den Hoeven. They both stood out well under last nights illumination. At one point they were thought to be of volcanic origin but Lunar Orbiter images have showed that at least H is definitely of impact origin:

 

 

 

 

 

The dark areas are interesting - in my image below you can see others as well, although I can't see these visually. I have always assumed (but I know very little about the subject) that they are caused by fine dust settling on a darker substrate, and that an impact removes the dust immediately round the pit.

Chris

 

[Barry Fitz-Gerald]

These features are Dark Halo Craters (DHC's) - and they form where an impact excavates darker, usually mare type basalts or pyroclastic deposits from beneath a lighter surface. In this case the surface is dominated by Copernicus ejecta rich in light highland rock (a plagioclase feldspar rich rock called anorthosite which is intrinsically bright - see The Genesis Rock found on the Apollo 15 mission) and a small impact has penetrated this and produced its own ejecta blanket of a much darker nature, probably composed of pulverized mare basalts from an underlying mare surface. DHC's are good probes of the lunar surface and can reveal the underlying rock types in their dark ejecta blankets. They were used to identify many areas of 'cryptomare', ancient mare type deposits buried beneath younger, lighter smooth plains within the highland areas, showing that volcanism was taking place very early in lunar history.

 

Cheers, Barry.