From NASA: "The lunar landing site was the Taurus-Littrow highlands and valley area. This site was picked for Apollo 17 as a location where rocks both older and younger than those previously returned from other Apollo missions, as well as from Luna 16 and 20 missions, might be found."
I set up at sunset to observe the "near" Mercury-Venus conjunction...followed during the evening with short viewings of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Mars. I didn't spend much time on the planets, but learned never to miss an opportunity to check them out!
Following my lunar observing, I also took advantage of the clear, steady skies to check out several open clusters in Auriga ( M36, M37, M38,
Now onto the main event. I focused my lunar observation on the Mare Serenitatis area starting with the interesting crater Posidonius and continuing along the Aldrovandi Range to the Taurus-Littrow valley. The area observed is shown in the attached image from Charles Woods "Atlas of the Moon". I scanned the area first at 102x and then took detailed views, identifying all the objects in that area.
The views through the SVX127D were amazingly crisp and I devoted a good two hours to doing a detailed survey of the area. My motivation for this session stems from my early years devoted to the space program that included all the early launches from Sputnik to the Apollo 17 mission. I also had the opportunity to meet the Apollo 17 astronauts when they made landfall in American Samoa.
A thoroughly satisfying session!!
Dave
I can't believe it's been 50 years already; hopefully the SLS changes that soon...
