Mare Orientale?

by Dave North

Ginger:

Hope someone had a better view than I did.

Just Bill, as it turns out.

The early conditions were very disappointing and got worse. It is traditional around here for the sky to go cloudy whenever Orientale is presenting, but this was ridiculous after last year's Race Up The Mountain To Get Above The Clouds (successful).

Let your deep sky friends know: only this time of year is the full moon normally clouded out.

Oddly, there was almost no contrast when I was looking -- it was a surprisingly flat image.We did lots of theorizing about seeing, haze, terminator position and libration, but then Bill turns around and gets much better looks later so...

There were quite a few features that could be recognized, and we pretty much did nail down the position and nature of the Big Weird Mountain, which is not named as far as we know -- just an oddly tall peak in the outer Rooks.

So I kind of like Big Weird Mountain. If you see it in the right light, it's a real head scratcher.

I'm puzzled by the whole evening, and think I'll take a very close look at the August presentation, which I didn't expect to be as good. It will, at least, be another data point on trying to figure out what the ideal conditions really are...