[AZ-Observing] The Lake of Death and Saturn
- From: "Steve Coe" <stevecoe@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:38:32 -0700
It all started with the Straight Wall. I looked almost straight up at the Moon
and thought to myself "the Straight Wall ought to be near the terminator
tonight". It turns out that was not the truth, but I had a great observing
session anyway.
I rolled back the roof to my backyard observatory, turned on the switch to the
7 inch Maksutov and put in a medium power eyepiece. I got an excellent, sharp
view of the Moon, but no Straight Wall. Maybe they moved it. No, they
couldn't have, because the Fox Channel special last month told me that we never
really landed on the Moon. Talk about getting your facts right from the horses
_____.
Anyway, I eventually found my way around enough to realize that the Straight
Wall will be tomorrow night and tonight is a great night for Lacus Mortis, the
Lake of Death. This fascinating feature is just south of Posidonius and shows
lots of detail as I raise the power to 300X. There is a lot of detail on the
floor of this area, wrinkle ridges wind their way across this area and there is
a "V" shaped feature on the north side, near the little crater Plana. Burg is
a very prominent crater on the eastern side of Lacus Mortis. It has a rather
small, but pretty easy to spot, central peak at high power. The area around
this feature is covered by dozens of tiny craters that pepper the ground nearby.
Before I closed the observatory I swung the scope over the Saturn and also got
an excellent view. At 300X the rings are shaded darker outside the Cassini
division, there are two low contrast bands on the ball of the planet and there
are 6 satellites around the planet.
All in all, a most memorable night. Good seeing, I rated it 7/10....great for
my backyard. And it was late enough that the Maksutov had equalized in
temperature and was providing terrific images.
Good night all;
Steve Coe
Author "Deep Sky Observing--The Astronomical Tourist"
Saguaro Astronomy Club website
www.saguaroastro.org
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