Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous (83.0%)
Q-Day: +3
Moonset: 1:52 AM Moonrise: 5:18 PM
Sunrise: 6:24 AM Sunset: 8:11 PM
Location: Home
Date: 2018-08-21
Time: 8:45 PM - 9:50 PM
Equipment: Celestron 6" Dobsonian, 25 mm wide-field
Magnification: x48
Transparency: Poor (1)
Seeing: Poor (1)
Warm night. High fog and cloud impeded clear viewing of any object for any length of time. Dave Chapman arrived around 7:45 PM to collimate the telescope. He was unhappy with the attempt to do so at Kejimkujik, so came here to determine if it could be done. Success! Collimation achieved. He also brought his eyepieces, and we tried his Televue Ethos 8 MM. The clarity was wonderful!
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After he left, I returned to my 25 mm eyepiece and between episodes of fog/cloud cover, drew the Sinus Iridum. What captured my attention was the brilliance of the face of the semi-circular Montes Jura. The pure white edge contrasted to the adjacent terrain. The shadows of the two promontories were evident. There were two faint craters to what would be the NE, one of which might have been Maupertuis or just the two smallest craters nearest Promontorium Laplace. Needs a further investigation. Did not look for other features due to limited time during sucker hole opening. Gave up at 9:50 PM. |