Last night (Oct.6th,'00) I had my scope at the San Jose Astronomical Association's in town star party at Houge Park. Before sundown the sky was clear but there was a lot of moisture in the air. I started setting up my telescope just before sundown, by the time I was ready for observing a good sized patch of fog was forming in the southwest. In less than an hour the sky was covered with fog (low clouds). A little over an hour later the skies cleared. It was amazing.
A troop of Boy Scouts came by but didn't get to see much and left just before the skies cleared. They were very well behaved and asked good questions.
A friend came by and mentioned the Hesiodus Ray but she was called back to her scope before she could tell me which feature was the Hesiodus Ray. I did see a modest sized crater or small walled plane with two long shadows. I don't know if that is the Hesiodus Ray. I did have Rukl's atlas but there were quite a few people coming by. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. ;-)
Rima Bert was easy to see. So were some of the smaller craters near by. Up north, virtually all of Hadley's rill was easy to see as the seeing would pop in. The southern part of Hadley's was easy to see most of the time. The seeing was 8 to 8.5 part of the time. You could easily see Hadley's rill skirting around Hadley and extending in a very crooked path north of Hadley.
I enjoyed the clear view of the small chain of craters between Erotostenes and Copernicus. Stadius was easy to see. The outside of the wall of Copernicus was very ruff looking.
The southern part of the moon was just great. It was fun to see how fast the sunlight spread across Clavius. I think I was seeing Tyco in full sunlight. It had very clearly defined steps in the wall.
| Telescope | AP 180EDT 7.1" f/9 APO triplet refractor |
|---|---|
| Eyepieces | 21mm Pentax SMC XL plus 2.5x TV Barlow, 7.5mm Tak LE, 5mm LE, and part of the time the 21mm Pentax plus a 5x TV barlow. |