Sunday (05.04.09) marked the end of MoonWatch week, which for me has been a fun event to celebrate even if the weather has not always cooperated. On this occasion the promising blue evening sky had given way to the fog like veil of cirrostratus cloud later that night, which I would have cursed at any other time if it weren’t for the hazy lunar corona that it was helping to create.
With Regulus in Leo sitting just above the Moon I decided to use the Bresser 10×50s mounted on the tripod to make a wide field observation. Trying to identify the number of lunar objects that I could see at this magnification was also quite fun. Near the southern terminator I could partially discern the Mare Nubium while to the north I could easily make out the giant ray crater Copernicus and the Mare Imbrium. The vast bay of the Sinus Iridium and the dark, lava filled crater Plato were also clearly visible in and around this area.
Looking eastwards I had no problem observing the dark stains of the brightly lit Maria — this included the Mare: Serenitatis, Vaporum, Tranquillitatis, Crisium & Foecunditatis — while the bright rays of Langrenus and the outlines of Petavius as well as Furnerius were all visible. I also managed to catch (with some added scrutiny) the smaller ray craters Manilius, Menelaus and Proclus, all of which looked like minute pin-pricks of light against the lunar surface.
By the time I had finished making a preliminary sketch the cloud cover had grown just that little bit thicker. It looked more and more likely that a blanket of stratus would begin to roll in from the west quite soon so I was happy to have made the observation when I did. All in all I have to say that this short lunar jaunt was the perfect way to end the first MoonWatch week. The second MoonWatch week won’t take place until late October, just after Jupiter SkyWatch week — both of which I’m really looking forward to. In between then and now I’m hoping to complete the Binocular Messier Club list and make some headway with the Lunar 100, which is more than enough to keep this amateur astronomer busy for some time.
[Post edited: 07.04.09]
Tags: Bresser 10x50, Copernicus, Langrenus, Leo, Lunar Corona, Manilius, Mare Crisium, Mare Foecunditatis, Mare Nubium, Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Vaporum, Menelaus, Moon, MoonWatch, Petavius, Plato, Proclus, Regulus, Sinus Iridium
Posted in Astro Art, Observing | No Comments »
In the wake of comet lulin’s close encounter I’ve been spending some time observing the Moon, while also scoring a good few objects off the lunar 100 list. So far I have seen 26 of the 100 objects listed (and many more not listed), ranging from the oblique impact rays of Proclus to the the dark edges of the Mare Serenitatis as well as a tentative observation of the lunar graben otherwise known as the Vallis Alpes. I suspect that for many of the other objects listed I’m going to have to employ a telescope, but for the moment I’m happy to observe the Moon with my 25×100s.
Besides trekking my way across the surface of the Moon, I’ve also been trying to figure out how many search term combinations lead to my blog as the number one result in Google. You could be forgiven for thinking that I am being rather narcissistic but you’d be totally wrong. I discovered last week, much to my surprise, that I had been tagged by the acclaimed visual observer and astro sketching talent that is Jeremy Perez over at The Belt of Venus. The object of the game as I mentioned above is to find out how many different search terms lead to your blog as the number one result in Google.
This really is fun and it’s an interesting way of learning just how spiders and robots use the content, tags and meta data that you apply to each of your web pages or blog posts. The following search terms below returned Space Jockey as the #1 result:
Lulin Stenhousemuir
Astro Sketching Stenhousemuir
Astroart Scotland
Extrasolar Planet Scotland
25×100 Falkirk
Sinus Iridium Scotland
Afocal Photography Scotland
Astroart Stenhousemuir
It’s pretty clear to see that this blog is inseparably linked to Scotland and my home town. There were plenty of other search terms that returned Space Jockey as a result, in particular Lulin Scotland returned a page rank of 8 while Space Jockey itself came in at #5.
As this is a chain letter of sorts all that remains for me to do now is tag a few others: Phil, Stuart and Amanda. You don’t have to play and as Jeremy says: “you will not suffer bad luck, the clouds will not close in, and your house plants will not wilt.”
Tags: Jeremy Perez, Lunar 100, Mare Serenitatis, Moon, Proclus, Strathspey 25x100, Vallis Alpes
Posted in Observing, Uncategorized | No Comments »