High cirrus clouds and actual warm, sunny weather on Saturday finally replaced the wintry weather of the past week, which deposited yet more snow in the Sierra.

It has been 3 weeks since I had the Mak out, and I was eager to get a look at the beautiful crescent moon. For this session, I had my 20-year old daughter Halina observing with me.

It was too cloudy to see the earthshine on the moon, which was disappointing, because I'm curious as to how old a moon can be before the features on the dark side finally disappear.

The whole evening we were gazing through clouds, thinner at times, thicker at other times.

I began scanning the crescent at 119x, and the two craters Hercules and Atlas screamed for attention. The terminator was at approximately 30E selenographic longitude.

I put in the 10mm eyepiece, giving 310x, and stayed with it for most of the night, except for a few looks at 413x.

Hercules G stood out in very sharp relief near the middle of Hercules, and some of the central mountains of Atlas were prominent. At the time I was looking at them, I suspected they were some craters I had seen before, but I wasn't sure. I showed them to Halina, and she gasped, "Wow! It looks like a painting! I didn't realize it would look like this! This is cool!"

Previously, I've shown her _really_ cool stuff like extremely faint galaxies at the limits of perception, and for some reason, she never seemed that interested. Now she was bubbling with excitement.

Of course, she asked me what they were, so I had to admit I had no idea, but we were going to look them up.

I fussed over the lunar atlas ("Atlas of the Moon" by Antonin Rukl), while she enjoyed the view.

Because I had heard that the moon was currently in a favorable eastern libration, I decided to check out what I could see on the eastern limb.

Both Mare Marginis and Mare Smythii were easily visible. I could barely make out what I believe were Neper and Goddard. Neper was located on the south edge of Mare Marginis and had light colored mountains in the middle of it. Goddard was a dark oval at the north edge of the Mare. (Rukl libration zone III)

I could all of Mare Smythii, including light lunar highland material at far edge of it at the limb.

This stuff was difficult to see and not that interesting to Halina, so I returned to Atlas and Hercules, and then began moving south.

We watched the sun rise in Posidonius (Rukl 14). It was very exciting, because when we first looked at it, the floor of the crater was black, with the western rim brightly lit and extending into the dark side. Posidonius A, a small crater in the middle of Posidonius, was visible, but looked like a mountain peak.

Moving east, Rima G. Bond was obvious as a sinewy line. I have not seen many rilles on the moon, and I was excited when I saw and idetified it. Halina asked, "Rima G. Bond? What kind of name is that?"

Consulting the atlas, I saw that the "G" stands for George, so I proudly announced, "George Bond. Rima George Bond." Somehow, I don't think that clarified anything. I neglected to mention that "rima" means "rille", although I'm not certain that would have helped at this point!

Next stop on our journey south was the crater Roemer (Rukl 25), in the Taurus Mountains on the shores of the Bay of Love. I _love_ lunar nomenclature! Had I been on the ball, I would have taken a look at the Apollo 17 landing site nearby. Oh well.

Roemer stood out as a very high contrast black circle pierced with a very bright central peak.

Rimae Roemer was easily visible, heading off in a northwesterly direction.

Returning to Posidonius, I noticed that the floor of the crater was now lit, and A was now obviously a crater.

Further south, Fracastorius (Rukl 58) looked interesting, but the thickening clouds were starting to obliterate fine detail. I could no longer see the rilles near Roemer.

It looked like it was just getting worse, so I packed it in.

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.Date:         May 30, 1998 9pm-10:30pm (0400-0530 May 31 UTC)
.Location:     Backyard in Roseville (near Sacramento), CA 121W 16', 38N 44'
.Instrument:   Intes MK-91 9" f/13.6 Maksutov-Cassegrain
.Oculars:      10, 7.5mm Sirius Ploessls
.Seeing:       7/10 really wavy
.Transparency: 4/10 cirrus clouds