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Lunar report
Hi all,
Here is my first Lunar report.
Telescope Nexstar 80GTL 900mm f11 refractor
Eyepieces 15,6mm Plossl
Skies patchy light cloud, poor seeing. Waxing Gibbous moon 88%
Not the best night but clear enough to look at the moon, and too much moon light to see many stars.
Tonight I was just trying to get myself oriented correctly on the more conspicous features so that I have a future reference to correctly identify where I am. For this purpose I concentrated on Tycho and Copernicus and being able to find and move between them.
As a looked around two walled plains along the terminator caught my eye. I looked at these for a while so that I could make some brief notes when I came in. First thing was to look up a chart and work out what they were. I hope I have this right.
Phocylidus:
The floor of this plain was still in full shadow. The outer face of the eastern wall and the inner face of the western wall were both lit up.
Schickard:
In this case sunlight was half way across the floor of the plain. I could see the leading edge of 2 small craters on the plain lit. As I watched longer I could see the line of shadow receding as the sun rose across the plain.
This was an interesting contrast to see these 2 plains next to each other but with different lighting effects.
Michael.
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