by Marek Cichanski
But... it's working out pretty nice so far. I just did a short Moon session with my ED80, and I had some very nice seeing here in P.A.. I even took it up to ca. 200x, which is a little nutty with a 3" scope, but not so nutty with the ED80. I just had it on a Telepod and a survey tripod, no tracking, but it worked out great. I was using a Denk II binoviewer with PowerSwitch, and 24mm Panoptics and 9mm Naglers.
Highlights:
Schiller / Zucchus basin showed up nicely.
Saw some hills and craterlets on the floor of Mersenius.
Marius Hills are RIGHT on the terminator. A great 'Apollo 18' night.
Aristarchus Plateau is also right on the terminator. The vertical bands on the inner wall of Aristarchus showed up nicely. Vallis Schroteri is starting to show as a big arc, still mostly in deep shadow.
I even went after my age-old nemesis, the 900m summit crater on Mons Gruithuisen Gamma. Had to, even though it was a quixotic quest. As usual, thought I saw SOMETHING, but still can't claim the bag.
So, it was a nice short session with the small refractor. May go out again later, the Moon is just getting higher!
Marek