Deep sky hunting and lunar observing during a full moon? Well, the weather finally cleared up after a couple weeks of the most bizarre May weather I can remember (we had summer in March, and now we're having winter in May), so I went out to look at stuff in the sky.
Since the moon was in its full glory, I decided to look at it, though, thanks to Bill Arnett, I had just heard about a new supernova (SN1998BU) in M96, which is easy to find and see, so I added it to my list of 1 object to observe.
Since Leo was just crossing the meridian and the moon was not terribly high yet, I decided to check out the supernova first.
The supernova was a fairly dim star a small distance (perhaps one M96 radius) outside what I perceived to be the boundary of M96. It appeared white and was unremarkable, except that it wasn't there the last 16 times I looked at M96.
Next, I turned my attention to Selene.
As usual, Tycho and its extensive rays dominated the southern view, and, as usual, I was overwhelmed with detail.
As I scanned around the face of the moon at 119x, Hercules (Rukl 14) and Atlas (15) stood out as interesting craters near the limb that had dark markings on their floors. Hercules showed bright white walls surrounding a sunken, dark floor, but somewhat off-center. Off-center in the floor was a very bright crater (G). It was an interesting contrast.
Atlas showed a rugged floor with two prominent dark spots. I could not see any of the rilles.
I was impressed by the variation of shades of light of the various features of the moon. This seems to be more noticeable near full moon than during crescents. Ray material, and recently excavated craters are by the far the brightest, and the floors of the maria are the darkest. But there are lots and lots of shades in between, far more than I see in photographs or drawings.
Palus Somni is a curious cross between lunar maria and lunar highlands. It is intermediate brightness, and appears to extend as a a fan-shaped spray of debris from Proclus, but it is not normal ray material. There are significant rays from Proclus, but they extend everywhere, except in the direction of Palus Somni.
It was a relatively short night, but one I enjoyed, being out under the stars under a full moon and clear skies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: May 10, 1998 10pm (0500 May 11 UTC) Location: Backyard near Sacramento, California 121W 16', 38N 44' Instrument: Intes MK-91 9" f/13.6 Maksutov-Cassegrain Oculars: 26, 10mm Sirius Ploessls Seeing: 8/10 reasonably steady Transparency: 8/10