SPACE JOCKEY

It was a cold one early on Tuesday morning, but the plus side of this was that the sky was crystal clear. A white frost had settled on everything and there was not a cloud to be seen - fantastic observing weather. I haven’t done any work on my Messier list for around a week and I knew that there was little chance during this session. The moon was hanging high over the western horizon and it’s milky light  was pervading nearly every part of the sky.

I had already decided before I started that I was going to spend nearly all of my time observing the moon, in particular the Mare Humorum ‘The Sea of Moisture’. Heading outside at around 00:54 UT, I set up the 25×100 binoculars on the tripod and turned them towards the glare of the lunar surface. I didn’t focus in the Mare Humorum just yet - I wanted to soak up the overall grandeur of the moon and take in some of the scenery.

My eyes immediately fell on the ray craters Kepler and Copernicus which looked spectacular as always. Plato, just north of the Mare Imbrium was clearly visible and I could easily see the small but brilliant ray craters Manilius and Menelaus in the south east over towards the Mare Vaporum and Mare Serenitatis. Moving north over the Mare Serenitatis I could make out the magnificent crater Posidonius sitting on the eastern coast of the ancient basin. Further south in the Mare Foecunditatis I could see the striking crater Langrenus lying almost on the eastern limb of the moon. From here I traveled down towards the southern lunar highlands and the outstanding ray crater Tycho where I could easily see the craters Scheiner and Blancanus lying just a little further south. Moving up from Scheiner and to the west of Tycho I landed on the odd and elongated crater of Schiller and finally the crater melange known as Hainzel. Heading northwards from here, the final stop was the Mare Humorum.

The most notable feature around the Mare Humorum aside from the Mare itself is the crater Gassendi lying on the northern shores of the impact basin. The original crater has all but been submerged with lava during the formation of the Mare meaning that the outer rim and the tips of the central peaks (which I could just see) are all that remain today. The smaller crater Gassendi A overlaps the northern rim of Gassendi while Gassendi B lies just to the north west beyond Gassendi A. The 25×100 binoculars readily made out the main crater Gassendi - Gassendi A was just visible while Gassendi B was just at the outer grasp of 25×100s and barely visible.

Heading southwards over the Mare I stopped to examine two smaller impact craters: Gassendi J and Gassendi O. Through the binoculars they really didn’t resemble craters at all but rather bright points of light but I was amazed that the 25×100s could pick them up.

Lying directly south of Gassendi lay three craters that were easily visible: the ancient Doppelmayer, the drowned crater Vitello M and the rugged Vitello. Doppelmayer at some point in the Moon’s past has been partially flooded with basaltic lava while little remains of the immersed Vitello M. My only set back here was my inability to observe crater Lee to the west of Vitello M and try as I might I just could not resolve it. Wandering from the southern shores of the Mare Humorum I let my eye’s drift east into the western fringes of the Mare Nubium and towards the prominent crater Bullialdus.

The crater itself looked extremely bright and I could just make out the faintest hints of the central peaks that rise up to a kilometer from the surface. West of Bullialdus lies the crater Agatharchides which on this occasion I failed to observe, however Agatharchides P and N were quite clear and well defined. Moving south from these small but pronounced lava flows I resolved Agatharchides A, a small satellite crater of the larger Agatharchides but unmistakable nontheless. To the south east of Agatharchides A I could readily see König, an isolated crater slightly larger than Agatharchides A and equally as bold. Ambling south beyond König I was also able to see Campanus and Mercator. Two reasonably defined craters located on the south western coast of the Mare Nubium. Both craters have at some period been flooded with basaltic lava sparing only the central peaks of Campanus and leaving Mercator completely featureless.

With most of my checklist fufilled I decided to call time on a very enjoyable lunar jaunt, but not before turning the 25×100s on Collinder 70 and Collinder 69 in Orion. Despite the glare from the Moon, both of these open clusters looked marvelous through the large binoculars and I spent the last ten minutes of my observation session gazing at these two fantastic objects. By now it was 02:00 UT and the freezing conditions really were setting in so I finally packed up the gear and headed indoors where I could happily thaw out.