Scope: 12"
Part 1
Observing time: 6pm - 9pm
Transparency: very good
(1) Ceres (mag 8.1 Dwarf Planet) - starting with something relatively bright - easily found. bright stellar like but not quite a point of light...
M31/M32/M110 - Really showing well tonight! M31 large and extended covering the entirety of the Delos 17.3 eyepiece. M32 showing up like a beacon to one side and M110 easily visible direct vision - determined from this that the transparency was actually pretty good.
Right.. down to work with some faint stuff before the Moon makes an appearance to advance on the Herschel 400
M77 (Mag 9 barred-spiral galaxy in Cetus) - just nudging the scope a touch from
The moon was just starting to come to play lighting up the east region of the sky. The zenith was still nice and dark though..
M42 - I viewed this about 3 times during the session (at the start once it had cleared sufficiently a tree, mid session and at the end with the Moon having risen in the same area. The structure of the nebula was stunning with the 17.3 Delos at the start when there was absolutely no moon - an incredibly 3D like view with considerable extension to the wings.
At 9pm I just put the cap on the
Part 2
Observing time: 10:30pm - 12:15
Seeing: good to excellent but very inconsistent
I have to say I didn't expect observing the Moon to be so much fun! My second dedicated time on the Moon I was starting to get the hang of it...
I learnt to relax and spend minutes at the eyepiece keeping both eyes open was a revelation keeping out stray light my covering the open eye with my hood, suddenly a lot more details would appear and I could spend considerably more time at the eyepiece and just take it in. Like this, more surface details would appear and I could take advantage of the wavering seeing conditions (at brief times it would be truly excellent and others a mess)
I realised that power was actually not conducive to getting detail on the surface of the Moon after changing from the 4mm (300x) back to a BCO 10mm (150x) and then settling on a 7mm Pentax for 214x. It was contrast that significantly more important to getting to the detail - the dimming affect from being over-powered did not allow me to see more and in fact details were often quite lost in the process particularly in areas that were not at the terminiator.
The 10mm BCO was one of those take the breath away moments - when actual colour seemed to come apparent and it wasn't actually just a grey ball of light. The 7mm also maintained a reasonable amount but I felt this power was better suited and did not lose any detail through the seeing conditions.
Mare Crisium - This was just perfect illumination with the back of the crater dissapearing into blackness and the edges of the "cliffs" either side of this highlighted magnificently showing considerable detail. Yerkes E resembles a tadpole with its "tail" that then connects into Yerkes. Cleomedes standing out to the side of Mare Crisium showed considerable depth to it.
Petavius - Again, perflectly illuminated - the central mountain area showing considerable stirations and irregularity. The cleave through from the centre to the edge of the crater showed a real depth giving an impression of considerable lava flow from the supposed volcanic activity from this area.
Furnerius - With the depth of illumination and show the craterlets showed easily (numerous to the north (
Demonax (i think) - This was difficult to determine that this was the actual crater and some of the around it because it was directly on the edge of the terminator... At the very edge looking across the moon, the sheer elevation of these crater cliffs could be seen as from outside of the crater. Spectacular would be an understatement.
Plato - not easy because of the lack of contrast however at the better seeing moments I could at least see two of the central craterlets.
Hadley Rille - It took me a little while to gain visual knowledge of the area starting from Mons Hadley and getting a good visualisation of the Mons Hadley Delta consistently and following the mountain line up until the white area ends. After getting this and with the Pentax 7mm for 214x at the times of excellent seeing (staying at the eyepiece for a good while..) the "river" of the Hadley Rille was easily apparent running upwards ending in much deeper fissured area. After I had done this once, I was able to repeat again much more easily directly.
Some mountains to directly south (
It was pretty difficult for me to teart myself away but it's a school night
So... wrapped up at 12:15 to clear up. Almost 5 hours of observing and the 7th session this month which is incredible!
