Meade Lightbridge Lunar observing report as of 20.10.2010

[Doc]

20.10.2010

Meade Lightbridge 16" F4.5 FL 1829mm

illumination 95%

Lunation 12.97 days.

Cold 4°c

Number 42 Marius hills

Through the 6mm ortho at x304 I could detect quite a few of the hills that pepper the floor north of the crater Marius, I counted maybe 10 of these little mounds. Marius E to the west was easily seen as was the little crater Marius G which is just 2 miles in diameter and resides inside Marius itself.

Number 57 Reiner Gamma

This object was extremely hard to see, just to the west of crater Reiner there appears to be a bright white formation on the moons surface, just below this is a very small crater maybe 3 miles wide, surrounding this is a buried crater with it's northern edge just clipping the white formation, this as far as i know is the ghost crater Reiner Gamma. This ghost crater comes from the Copernician (From -1.1 billions years to present days) period of the moons history and is 24 x 18 miles in size. I found the 9mm ortho at x203 picked up the detail best and once you knew what you were looking at the details started to emerge.

Number 86 Prinz rilles

Just as a side note Aristarchus and the Schoter Valley looked magical tonight, they glistened in the sunlight like I've never seen them before. Next over to the horseshoe crater Prinz, this crater comes from the Lower Imbrian (From -3.85 billions years to -3.8 billions years) period and is a 29 miles diameter crater with the southern edge engulfed by lava. With the 9mm ortho inserted I could detect a few rilles projecting out from the northern edge of Prinz, I could also detect a central dome within the crater Prinz.

Number 77 Rimea Sirsalis

The crater Sirsalis looks like a double crater and comes from the Eratosthenian (From -3.2 billions years to -1.1 billions years) period, it is 25 miles in diameter and through my 6mm ortho I could detect very steep terracing sides and a lava filled floor, within the floor a small central peak is visible. Just south of the crater lies craters J & F and the Rimea Sirsalis seems to originate from here and travels southwards bisecting the crater Cruger A & Cruger C. Rimae Sirsalis is 182 miles long and it's height and width are unknown.

Number 52 Cruger

The time is 20.04 crater Cruger is just emerging from the terminator, the sunlight illuminating it's entire rim. At 21.39 and Cruger resembles a crater within a crater. The outer crater is the Pyroclastic South Crugar crater wall. I had to wait till gone 22.45 to see the whole of Cruger, what a wonderful circular crater at 28 miles in diameter and 1500 feet high it's pretty impressive and with my 4mm ortho at x457 inserted I even caught a rare glimpse of a cratlet on the lava filled floor.

Number 43 Wargentin

Lying just above Schickard are three large craters the bottom one is the crater Wargentin. The crater looks extremely flat in the 12.5mm ortho at x146, the northern rim is missing and through the 4mm ortho I could detect a wrinkle ridge running through the middle. The crater comes from the Nectarian (From -3.92 billions years to -3.85 billions years) period and is 51 miles in diameter and has slopes 900 feet high.

Number 30 Schiller

Next on my list was the elongated crater Schiller, very easy to find and large at 108 x 43 miles. With the 9mm ortho inserted I could clearly see the steep sides that are 11800 feet high and I could even detect the mountain range that lies in the North West end of Schiller.

Number 59 Schiller-Zucchius basin

Not dead sure what I was meant to be looking at, but my copy of the Lunar 100 states the Schiller-Zucchius Basin is 335 miles in diameter so I knew I was searching for a very large object. I found the crater Zucchius and by inserting a wider field eyepece like my 16 uwan, I could detect a basin type crater, it was very large encircling the craters Weteelh, Zucchius and Segner and bordering Schiller. To the East of Weteelh there appears to be a crater ridge running from the crater Rost A to Zucchius, this to my untrained eye looked like the sides of an enormous crater.

It was nearly 23.30 now so started to pack up. Thats another 8 objects off my Lunar 100 list.

[red dwalf]

nice report again Mick,

Moon was very bright last night

got out at last with the new adapter for the meade trying to image Jupiter, no luck though, went back to the webcam

[Doc]

nice report again Mick,

Moon was very bright last night

got out at last with the new adapter for the meade trying to image Jupiter, no luck though, went back to the webcam

Thanks Rob it was indeed very bright but after a while your eyes become adapted to it. Is the adapter the one Andy made for you?

[red dwalf]

yes it`s the one Andy made, i`ll put some pictures on the social forum when i have a minute of it on the camera.

tried it last night on Jupiter but not as easy to use as the webcam

[Talitha]

Well done Mick, and change your tally... you definitely got Reiner Gamma. It's the large, bright white surface feature to the west of Reiner. It's a mystery what caused the white swirly looking feature.. there's no height to it, it looks like someone sifted flour on the surface.. very strange to say the least.

You got the Schiller-Zucchius Basin, too. It's roughly bounded by Noggerath, Schiller, Rost A, Weigel and Segner, with Bettinus and Zucchias on the outer boundary. It's a bit battered, but once you know what to look for it's fairly easy to pick it out.

The flatness in Wargentin is lava.... the crater is absolutely filled to the rim with it, and looks like a big plateau.

[Doc]

Cheers Carol

Just to confirm is Reiner Gamma the white formation or is it the darker kite formation below the white deposits with a small cratlet in the middle as VMA seems to point to the dark formation.

[Talitha]

I'm not sure how the VMA decides where to place the identifier, but Reiner Gamma is the bright albedo feature and includes the tail which extends to the Marius Hills.