viewing the moon

[Terest]

Hi my husband has got a telescope and I bought him a book of planets etc and he wants to know if the pictures in the book of the moon show it as he would see it through his telescope or if it is upside down if that makes sense.

I have asked several people to no avail.

[brianb]

What sort of scope? If it's a Newtonian / Dobsonian reflector & you're using a normal eyepiece the image will be fully inverted i.e. Mare Crisium will be at the bottom left side of the Moon. If it's a refractor, Maksutov or Schmidt-Cassegrain and you're using a star diagonal, the image will be inverted left to right but not upside down, i.e. Mare Crisium will be at the top left side of the image.

Trying the scope out on something which you know the orientation out is the best way of finding out. The Moon is excellent, so is a small bright asterism, the Pleiades is ideal for a small scope.

[peeceeTal2M]

This is always handy to have for a quick reference

Sky & Telescope's Mirror-Image Moon Map Laminated

[tinvek]

at the risk of sounding stupid and stating the obvious, have a look at something on the ground during the day. houses make it pretty obvious which way up they are and as long as they're not symetrical left and right should stand out too