Rupes Recta Catching the Sun

[John]

Lovely lunar views tonight with my 100mm refractor.

The Rupes Recta (the Straight Wall) is right on the terminator tonight and the sunlight is just catching it's higher edge and "the Scimitar" feature while the rest of the floor of ancient Thebit is in darkness. The ramparts of the crater Birt are high enough to catch the sunlight as well though standing out as a gleaming crescent against the pitch black plain below with the black pock mark of Birt A embedded in the brightness.

Nice illumination of this well known area

Many other features looking good as well. Very thin, hazy clouds around but the moon is shining crisply through those at the moment.

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by John

[Mr Spock]

Yes, they do look good. The moon is very crisp here too but the seeing is unstable. Through the 250 I mainly stuck to x171 as I wasn't seeing any more detail at higher powers.

[Nik271]

I was watching the Moon as well, Rupes Recta was showing as a straight edge of darkness, lovely! I spent a lot of time on Deslandres and followed some of the catenas on its floor. I believe the seeing did not support above x200 but I only had a 9mm EP left in the scope giving me x300 and did not want to get up to the house and trigger the security lights next door, so I stayed at this magnification. There were a few short moments of clarity which made it just about worthwhile. I spotted several of the tiny craterlets around Triesnecker: G H and J I believe. Wikipedia lists them as 3km in diameter, so good performance from the Skymax 180.

[Stu]

I was looking at the very same thing last night, out with a few of my local group. I managed a quick phone shot of it as it looked quite dramatic.

Hyginus and Treisnecker rilles were showing well last night too, although probably not best illumination for Treisnecker.