[AZ-Observing] Re: The Lake of Death and Saturn
- From: Jeff Hopkins <phxjeff@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:06:32 -0700
Steve Coe wrote:
>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.
Thanks for the report. I missed last night, but was up past midnight
on Monday night. I'll try again tonight. My new Lunar/Planetary
observatory is nearly finished and I just got the rolloff roof
working this past weekend so now I can get down to some observing
with my 6" refractor.
On Monday night I was observing the moon around midnight and noticed
a feature I've seen before, but have yet to identify it. On the
bright edge of the moon I can see twin peaks rising above the rim.
Have or anyone else seen this? I will try to get some pictures
tonight.
Jeff
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