A beautiful clear sky yestereve, and the rising moon was well placed for viewing from my new home in Sacramento. I wasted no time in setting up my 70mm refractor to see what was showing! These observations were made between 7 and 7:40 PM PST.

At 140x (7mm ortho + 2x barlow) the poor seeing was quickly revealed: the air was really boiling violently, to the degree that even large craters like Aristarchus appeared to jump around the lunar surface, and occasionally presented as double or triple images. I was observing from within my apartment complex, and don't doubt that much of the seeing was "local" in the form of heat rising from roofs that had baked in the sun all day. Unfortunately my obsevring window was too short to wait for the air to settle, or pack my scope to a more thermally stable site, so I pressed on determined to see what I could. It turned out to be a very rewarding session!

Starting north of Sinus Iridium, the large walled plain of Herschel stood out plainly (Rukl 2). I was able to detect at least 4 craters on the floor, only one of which really showed a bowl shape. There was also an bold, dark shadow on the wall of Herschel where it meets Anaximander. It looked like a deep, steeply walled valley joining the two features.

Moving south along the terminator, the highlands around Mairan showed some nice mottling, which appears on the map (Rukl 10) as hundreds of small craters. The nearby Mons Gruithuisen struck me as smooth and "soft" by comparison, reminiscent of volcanic cinder cones. Rima Sharp also showed nicely right by the terminator.

One of the more interesting sights was provided by the crater Krieger (Rukl 19). The small crater Van Biesbroeck, which sits astride Krieger's rim, was unevenly illuminated, with the intersections of the superimposed rims shining brightly and the rest of Van Biesbroeck barely visible. At first glance it really looked more like a cleft in Kreiger, guarded by high mountains. I continued further south past Marius, but pressing obligations (dinner) forced me to hurry along.

Viewing with small aperture, through the poor seeing, I thought of the pioneering astronomers. They probably had a similar view in their small refractors, and in that light many of their interpretations seem reasonable. Without knowledge of the clear images provided by the space program, I could probably be convinced that the moon is a desert planet dotted with volcanoes and fortresses!