Aristillus, Autolycus, Archimedes and 'The Horns of The Devil'

[Swoop1]

Another grab and go type session tonight as I enjoyed last night so much.

2100UT- 2145UT Celestron C6 SCT on AZ4 from my back garden in South Bucks. Basic 25mm and 10mm, BST 8mm and Meade 40mm plossl EP's. Scope deployed at around 2000UT for cooling. Transparency fair to good and seeing good with occasional thermal shimmering.

I intended to take advantage of the heads up given by @paulastro about the Stars Of Aristillus but, I was a little too late to catch the peaks illuminated alone  before the rim shadow passed the mountain bases. I was however able to resolve the mountains through the 25mm. Switching to the 10mm and then 8mm I confirmed that resolution fell off quite sharply and that the 25mm is the sweet spot. I tried the 40mm and the clarity was superb but the 25mm just took it on magnification without loss of detail.

I spent quite a bit of time casting around the area enjoying the views of the Triple A's and the surrounding terrain before two very high albedo bright spots really caught my eye. In a flight of fancy, the spots resembled the burning horns of some mystical beast emerguing through the surface of Mare Imbrium. On examination of the spots and consulting my copy of the Ronald Stoyan Duplex Moon Atlas, I saw that one was in a direct line North West starting at Mons Piton through Piazzi Smyth and I think I identified it as Mons Pico. The other 'horn' I couldn't identify. They are clearly visible in the top image by @Stu in his reply to the paulastro heads up-

Another very enjoyable session.

I also had a cast about for potential noctilucent cloud. No luck but a couple of noctilucent con trails were visible!

[Stu]

Nice report @Swoop1. Do you mean these two features? I’ll have a check and see what I can find.

[Stu]

Hmmm, seems unnamed in the Lunar Quickmap and MoonGlobe HD. Anyone got it identified in a lunar atlas?

[Nik271]

The top one is Pico, the lower one should be Pico beta, I think:

[IB20]

@Nik271 is correct according to my Atlas; seems the secondary peak isn’t directly named but assume that beta nomenclature is right. Correction - Nik is bang on.

Edited May 28, 2023 by IB20

[Swoop1]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Nice report @Swoop1. Do you mean these two features? I’ll have a check and see what I can find.

Them's are the horns in question Stu.

[Swoop1]

Thanks @Nik271 and @IB20. I thought I had pegged one as Pico but couldn't quite work out what the second was.

[Roy Challen]

Agree with the above, also don't know what the lower peak is😀 I use Phillips moon map.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Roy Challen

[Knighty2112]

From the Clementine Atlas of the Moon.