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5/28/99 Observing, Tonopah, conditions poor, Moon Full, sky glow severe,moisture content high, temperature cool 55 degrees. Began 2130, finish 2330. 10" DOB.
I was studying my Norton's this morning at breakfast and realized that there is a prominent feature I have overlooked for years, the Straight Wall on the Moon. I'd heard others chatting about here on TAC so I decided to give it a try.
From what I gather, it appears as a dark line before Full Moon and after Full Moon as a bright line. Could I even see it? Even though the Moon was full tonight, I decided to give it a shot.
I located Tycho and Crater Hopped down to Pitatus. From there, I hopped a bit further north to an unnamed crater in the middle of Mare Nubium. From there, I hopped east two craters.
At 54X I could just make out a range of some sort running north south. At 104X it clearly looked like a linear feature. I tried 312X and found only some improvement as the air was just boiling the image. It definitely again showed as a ridge line of some sort. According to Norton's, its actually a 120 KM fault line about 800 to 1000 feet high. The best image was back at 104X.
I will have to try this again when the shadows are better!
Continued by moving westward to Grimaldi. Got a nice view of it and the sun now fully lit the entire crater. However, I didn't see any central "spike" dome shown on my computer "wallpaper" image. Not sure why. Also took a good look at Riccioli and Damoiseau, both near Grimaldi.
Finished the session with a 54X macro view of Copernicus. The ray system around it looks like tremendous "crazing" like the Moon will crack into pieces there! This is totally unlike Tycho's rays which are pretty much straight lines. By the way, the Northwest ray from Tycho seems to be almost two ray lines separated by a tremendously long valley. I wonder if that is actually what I'm seeing?