Mare Serenitatis and environs 26th May 2023

[Swoop1]

I haven't done much in the way of plain observing for a few weeks (not done much of anything really!) so decided to break out the C6 SCT and AZ4 for a short session tonight.

I started and around 20:20UT and spent half an hour at the EP's before terminating as work beckons tomorrow morning.

I decided to concentrate on the Mare Serinitatis area. My attention was properly grabbed by Posidonius which looked surreal tonight- almost like a fake rubber crater dropped onto the surface of the moon. The albedo of the crater floor looked markedly different to the mare and highlands on which it sits. The fractured nature of the floor of the crater was discernible.

I had started with the stock Celestron 25mm EP that came witht he scope and the view was nice and sharp. I was able to resolve down to Posidonius P and possibly to M so I swapped out to a 10mm that I got with my Skywatcher Newtonian. The increase in magnification didn't really come with any increase in resolving power so I then thought I would try an 8mm BST Starguider in case it was optics quality but there was no marked improvement. I decided to go back to the 25mm when I saw what looked like an out of focus ISS slowly creeping up the FOV- must have been a floater. The 25mm is definitely the prime EP for visual on this scope with my eyes.

A thoroughly enjoyable 30 minutes or so with fair transparency and generally good seeing.

 

[bish]

Nice report. I was out looking around that area last night. It was great. Made up for not seeing the SN in m101 (annoyingly couldn't   see m101)

[Nik271]

Very nice! Your C6 will probably need more than 30 mins outside to cool to perform at its best, depends on where it was stored. Even if was stored at ambient daytime temperature, in the evening under clear sky the heat IR loss  is so fast that it takes some time to stabilize. I dound my 127 Mak is OK after 30 minutes but my big 180mm Mak needs much longer, an hour at least. 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Nik271