The long range weather forecast showed this evening to be the only clear night to be expected for the next 10+ days so I had to get some observing in. Only problem is that my arch nemesis, the moon, is currently 94% illuminated which pretty much eliminated on anything
For this evening's session I decided to pull out my big 5" refractor on the EXOS2-GT mount. I haven't used this setup in quite sometime and I was quite excited to pull it out. Alignment of the
Wow! I had forgotten the crisp views this scope delivers. Even though it is an achromat I didn't notice any bothersome
I spent some time just taking in the view though the
Tycho - Obvious target. I found it neat to trace along the ejecta lines extended out in the Mare Nubium
Schickard Crater with adjoining Lehmann Crater stood out quite nicely
Moving up top Pythagoras Crater with its mountain in the center showed nice detail as well.
There were many others, but I wasn't taking any notes so I put my iPad with my moon
Afterwards, to test out how washed out the sky was I moved the scope over to M42 for what was one of the most pathetic views I have ever had of this longtime favorite. The Trapezium showed up well enough, but most of the nebulosity was washed out with the moon not far away.
Before I called it a night I decided to attach my DLSR on and captured a couple of wider shots of the moon just for the heck of it. I haven't figured out posting images on this forum quite yet so I'll post them later.
Overall it was a great evening out, even if I was "forced" to spend my time viewing only the moon. I could have spent some time hunting double stars, but I wasn't about to attempt star hopping thing with my barely aligned
Anyway, that was my night out with good old Luna. Thanks for checking out my brief report of tonight's observing!
Clear Skies My Friends!
Craig