Friday, December 29, 2017

rings of light

Weather has been variable from a teasing haze to thin overcast, so not much observing done.  I had about an hour earlier this week on the moon with Big Blue, under good seeing at 553x, scanning the terminator.  The most striking view was Clavius, which was filled mostly with shadow except for craters C & D: the complete rims of both these craterlets were illuminated and shown like crisp rings of light over the dark.  As time passed a faint, thin strip appeared to connect the two, and a rough slope to the south of D emerged.  The western rim of Clavius appeared as a bright, ragged parenthesis.  To top it, at the moon's southernmost limb, an illuminated mountain range floated separate from the rest of the moon, above the surrounding shadow; it was probably part of the ring mountain Drygalski, which according to Rukl is only partly visible during favorable librations.

I've been gathering materials to retrofit my 20-inch with motors and tracking, and hope to have that project completed soon.

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