The Moon?

[erick]

Well, it's a long weekend; the sky was clear (which is not going to last); no other commitments - OK, lunar observing it was for the evening of 11 April.

Set up the C8 on wedge, roughly polar aligned and RA motors running. Tracking good enough for high magnification observing

I spent a little while looking at the Jewel Box and at Saturn, then moved to the Moon. While it was still relatively low, I experimented with various widefield eyepieces comparing magnification and actual field of view. A few stray clouds.

Back inside for a couple of hours TV with my wife, then back out when the Moon was well towards the meridian. Sky was completely cloud free. Transparency seemed very good and seeing was good. Spent my time tracking around the deepening shadows of the lunar rim, managing to hold a good view in my 6mm Vixen LV (= 330x). Lots of interesting features to be observed. Some of the mountains seemed to be quite high, judging by the length of shadows they were throwing, or maybe they might have been closer to the limb than I was thinking.

I was immediately struck by something I hadn't seen before - Rima Petavius in crater Petavius. There was nice shadow inside the entire 80km of the straight rille that runs radially from the central peaks to the collapsed rim. Reportedly it is a collapsed lava tube within this quite old crater. Quite stunning and the light was just right!

Also pleased - ran the corrector plate dew heater strap off a small power plug pack and PWM controller I constructed last week. Ran for several hours without anything overheating or blowing up! Great! I can heat the C8 corrector independently of my main controller.

Also experimented with pointing the scope with my laser pointer hand held in a more robust mount. That worked well.

All packed up and indoors before tommorrow's predicted clouds and showers.

Eric :)

[pgc hunter]

nice report! Sounds like you had a rare bout of good seeing :thumbsup: Here in SE Melb the sky seemed hazy and mostly overcast ofcourse.

[ngcles]

Hi Erick,

Very good report -- good to see the corrector plate heater & stuff etc is working well.

I'm told the Moon has a lot of interesting features through a telescope and I thoroughly enjoyed reading your account of observing the Rima within Petavius.

For those interested, here:

http://www.webcam-astrophotography.com/moon/3-July-2004.html

is a web-page with a few pics that illustrate this interesting feature. On the face of it, they seem to be taken a day or two after full moon with an apparently similar angle of illumination to Erick's observation.


Best,

Les D

[erick]

Thanks Les, yes those images show what I was observing. I have flipped/rotated one to give the view as I saw it.

In moments of clearer seeing, I could glimpse that other rille that wiggles its way 2/3 towards the rim.

"I'm told the Moon has a lot of interesting features through a telescope" - you haven't looked at it??? :confuse2:

[Jen]

:thumbsup: nice pic Erick
Beautiful skies last nite
yeah i had the scope out checking out the moon too last nite till about 2am when the dam pop up sprinklers came on again :mad2: so it was a quick mad dash to pack up :shrug: the scope never got wet but dam i did LMAO :lol:

[erick]

....came on again??? OK, how many times now, Jen? :lol:

[Jen]

:lol::lol: lol Erick i have been caught out quite a few times now :doh: you think i would have learnt by now :rolleyes: but you know what its like you take the scope out with the intentions of just being for a little while and it turns out your having a blast seeing some awsome stuff then next thing you know wow the suns coming up and you think wow where did the night go :lol:
Time flies when ya having fun :lol:

[erick]

You need a five minute warning siren for the sprinklers :rofl:

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol: yeah thats right :thumbsup:

[pgc hunter]

Whilst I LOL'd when I read this, it is certainly not funny when a green UDL binging alien gets her scope almost mangled by some bugger's sprinkler!!!!!

But because the scope didn't suffer , it certainly is hiiiiiiiiii-larious.

[Jen]

:lol::lol: yeah you should have seen me i would have looked so funny running around the acre back yard like an idiot dodging sprinklers coming from all directions trying to get the scope back to the house :lol::lol: i was freezing cold after that and just had a ciggy i was panting like i just ran a marathon :rofl:

[pgc hunter]

Haha that would've been so freaking funny to see, good thing I wasnt there coz I would've needed an ambulance to give me oxygen while I lose my breath cacking myself to death at you running around like a freaked out chicken

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol: yep that was me alright a freaked out chicken :doh::lol::lol:
:tasdevil::tasdevil::tasdevil:



Ooops sorry Erick i didnt mean to hijack your thread im on a roll here LMAO

[pgc hunter]

lol I'm still picturing that in my head.......soooooo funny!!! Lol if I wasthere taping that I would've put it on funniest home videos!



[COLOR=darkorchid][B]

yeah Jen whaddaya doin hijackiing a perfectly legitimate thread?

[ngcles]

Hi Erick & All,



Erick, well (whispers) to tell the truth, just between you and me, I have looked at it occasionally.

But if the Deep Sky Observers Guild finds about my trysts with Selene, they'd kick me out. So keep it just to yourself ... okay?


Best,

Les D

[Jen]

shhhhhhh maybe he cant see me ;)

[pgc hunter]

now if I'm not mistaken, Erick does have eyeballs and they do function to provide him with sight, and consequently catch you in da act...

[Jen]

:lol::lol: nah he has to use his binos to see and they are facing up not down here :rofl::rofl:

:whistle::whistle:

[Paddy]

Thanks for the post Eric.

I have also been doing a bit of moonwatching and have had such good seeing that I tried my 9mm nagler with 2x barlow in the paracorr, giving a total mag of 500x. It was fantastic! I didn't think you could use a barlow witha paracorr, but it worked fine. Your post struck me as I was very struck by Rima Petavius as it was so bright. I hadn't got around to looking it up yet, so thanks for the explanation.