Above~ The Moon at 12 days, 5 hours, 41 minutes. Nikon 5100 on a f4.8 ES Comet Hunter, 1/60 sec @ ISO 160.
Sunday, April 2, 2023~ 7:30 – 9 pm.
Location~ Moosehorn Creek, NB
Sky Conditions~ Clear, windy.
Temp~ 3° 47% humidity.
Moonrise~ 4:10 pm
Sunset~ 7:52 pm
Age of Moon~ 12d 5h 38m
Transit~ 11:21 pm
Lunar brightness is now at 89.8%
The 12 Day Moon~
Returned to the Observatory after months of dealing with back, vertigo and foot problems, so this was basically a trial run. Vacuumed up all the winter crud and reset the AVX to DST. Telescope was still in a reasonable alignment. It was good to be back.
Put in a 10mm eyepiece with a Moon filter and went in for a look. Moon was eye poppingly bright with astounding detail as usual. Schickard on the terminator jumped out along with Mersenius, Gassendi and Billy. Kepler popped along with Marius and Herodotus. I “rode along the Terminator” and took it all in. What a fantastic object to view.
Popped a camera in at 8:05 just to get a record. Moon time was 12d 5h 41m. Went back to observing for a while; shut it down about 9pm.
Summary~
Moon at 12d 5h 38m at 73 magnification with filter (10mm)
Schickard, Mersenius, Gassendi and Billy
Kepler, Marius and Herodotus
All at 73 magnification with Moon filter.
Scope– ES Comet Hunter – 152mm f/4.8 731mm Maksutov-Newtonian
Mount– Celestron AVX
Eyepiece used– 10mm Ethos
Music~
In stead of music, I listened to the Sunday Night Astronomy Show. Despite a bad internet connection, it was kinda neat listening to Mike Powell talk about the Moon while I was observing the Moon.
Sources~
New Atlas of the Moon by Thierry Legault & Serge Brunier [2006]. Beautiful Firefly reference book with overlays, unfortunately out of print.
Sky and Telescope’s Field Map of the Moon~Mirror image laminated fold out map. I use this all the time, handy.
21st Century Atlas of the Moon~ by Charles A. Wood and Maurice J. S. Collins (2013). Excellent detail.
The PhotoPills App~ Exact time and age of the Lunar Cycle, sunset, twilight phase info for our gps location, etc. Great app.
50 Things to See on the Moon~ by John A. Read.