finally...

...after weeks of cloudy weather at home it was clear enough to observe last night.  Heavy dew and mediocre transparency, along with rather poor 4/5 seeing, but still.  When I opened up the shed I found the primary had dewed over -- not sure if because of a temperature change when opening, or if dew had formed during closure.  So I gave it a quick rinse with distilled water.  I found an easy way to clean the mirror without removing it from the structure: I took a 4'x2' sheet of stiff plastic and shoved it in front of the mirror and out the back (with the scope at 45* altitude), forming a kind of sluice.  I used a clean ketchup bottle to squirt the distilled water on the primary.  I didn't use any soap, but I still gently rubbed the mirror surface with my fingertips while irrigating where I rubbed.  I daresay the result was just as clean as a full-on wash.

I turned on my dew heater early, and added a warmer around my finder scope objective.  This time I only observed the moon using the binoviewers at 117x.  Seeing was poor, like looking up through pool water.  I started out to at Copernicus and crater-hopped around from there, picking out objects from the 21st Century Atlas of the moon.

Had long looks at the Hortensius Domes & Kepler.  North of Kepler there is a flat area bordered by a curving range of mountains, almost paisley shaped.  There are three hills or mounds in a row in the far northern section -- they were just on the edge of the terminator and were lit up a brilliant white, like three round beads or shields.  The opposite hills cast long cone shaped shadows toward them, and two of their hills were also illuminated white.

 From there I observed the Herigonius Rille, very subtle, flowing between a gap in mountains.  Gassendi was in shadow so I could not see its crater floor features.  "The Helmet" old volcanics area showed very well.  The Hippalus Rilles were very engaging, three prominent concentrically curved rilles running through mountains.  Very faintly outlined Kies and the dome Kies Pi showed up too.  I was also able to see the branching Ramsden Rilles.

Sight of the night was Hesiodus A, a concentric crater with and inner ring.  The atlas described it as a hard find, but I thought it rather easy -- very satisfying indeed.  Piratus's Rilles were a bit faint.  Alpetragius was interesting, a crater with a prominent central rounded hill, like an egg in a nest.

A strong contender for sight of the night was the intricate shadows along the western rim of Clavius.  A row of hills formed shadows on two sides, like two almost completed figure eights, starting from crater Porter to Rutherford.  Also in this area is Newton, highly foreshortened, but I could see D's tall rim mountain and get a sense of the height difference between summit and floor on the opposite side.

I poked around Aristoteles a while, and could pick out the Gartner Rilles and the very faint Sheepshanks Rilles, but the angle of light was too high for good views.

Seeing is supposed to be very good tonight so I have hopes of some good double star work.