by Steve Nelson
Up early so I decided to see the moon. I have been reconditioning my backyard observatory and decided to try it out at 5:30 AM.
10" Mead SCT 200X under cold skies. Frost on everything. But thanks to the wonders of a 'dog house' kind of structure the scope is cooled down and protected. Seeing is relatively steady and no wind. I still notice what seems a bit of local seeing as the scope radiates and my warm body perturbs the environment. Copernicus is wonderful at this phase. A rill and a shallow valley with a central rill? towards the north. The shallow valley is right on the terminator.
No time to look up the features in an atlas before work, but a job for tonight. Maybe time to be more systematic this time in my 'log book'. I know Shallow Sky might be a better place to ask, but would these be an OK start to a lunar log data base? [Date, Time, Phase (days or degrees), lat, long, notes]
My 'pier' is totally inadequate. 3 sec vibration when I hit the scope. I do not want to dig out a 3 ft deep pit for concrete ( the frost line must be ½" deep here)! What kind of shallow concrete/sand base will work with bay silt/clay ? I might use a sand-in-pipe damper for a steel pier.