Well, fair luna was just too tempting to ignore tonight, so out into the front yard with the BT80 it was. Pick up observing chair in one hand, scope in the other (zoom eyepieces installed inside in the comfort of the living room...) and voila, one instant observing session.

I did all my looking at 112X, which is the maximum I can get on the Vixen 8-24mm zooms eps. Seeing was not terrific, but it was the slow kind. Small details were sharp but wandered around somewhat.

The far north wasn't terribly interesting, but around the Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquillitatis border things got interesting (map 24 in Rukl). The many rilles in Serenitatis were showing up well (Dorsae Nicol, Smirnov, Lister and some of Azara--the latter close to the terminator and decorated with brightly lit little craters along it).

Now, draw a line from Promontorium Archerusia to Mons Argaeus. The Rima Plinius runs along that line, roughly. The area of Rima Plinius near to the Promontorium was shadowed, and these shadows seemed to extend (getting less and less) well out along the line to Mons Argaeus. The effect was one of suggesting that there is a height difference between the main area of Serenitatis and that of Tranquillitatis, with Tranqullitatis being higher. The direction of the shadowing agreed with that of the crater walls (Dawes, Plinius) in the area.

If that is so, then there must have been at one time one whale of a lava flow coming down from Tranquillitatis into Serenitatis. Does anyone know if such an event is part of the "generally accepted moon history" of lunar scientists? I also noted that the rille systems in Serenitatis do seem to spread out from the juncture of the two Mare, as if the rilles were the remains of gigantic flows pouring into Serenitatis. Perhaps an overactive imagination...

Anyway, heading south again (Rukl map 35) I saw a number of nicely lit craters floating in blackness just along the terminator. A few had the 'diamond necklace' effect wherein peaks along the crater rim were just starting to catch light, but all below them was darkness. This leaves a circular ring of bright sparkles seemingly floating just beyond the terminator. More of the same kind of thing was happening further south (Rukl map 46) in the highlands W. of Theophilus and Cyrillus.

It was while I was looking in this area that the "event of the night" occured. A little farther to the west of the terminator than Theophilus was to the east of it, a dot of light appeared momentarily. It lasted about 1-2 seconds and then was gone. A meteor strike? Can we see those from down here? Time was appx. 2115 PDT. There are certainly other possible explanations (noise from autofiring neurons in the optic nerve, e.g.). Yet it sure seemed real enough. I kept looking there for a while, but nothing further showed where the dot had been.

Finished up looking along the highlands in the far south. Got up, stretched, looked at the watch and was amazed that I'd been looking at the moon for almost 40 minutes straight. Seemed like 5 minutes. Also discovered that all 4 cats were out supervising, so the stretch break ended up being a pet-me, pet-me session.

Went back looking for that dot again. Nothing.

Noticed Jupiter was up. Low, yes, and seeing was thusly very soft. Couldn't see much detail beyond the two main bands. The 4 moons were out in view, two to each side and all well away from the planet itself. Watched Jupiter a short while and came back in. Total time: about 1 hour. Sure beats watching TV!