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⬅️ Previous capture (2023-03-20)
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About 6:45pm AKST I noticed Venus and Jupiter, lined up with the moon:
The first quarter moon looked like an worthy target, so I decided to do some moon gazing, starting about 8pm. I focused mainly on the southern half, along the terminator line.
Stellarium Screenshot of Moon (South is up)
A few features that stuck out at me were
- The three big craters near Mare Nectaris: Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina
- Those five smaller craters in between them and the terminator line
- Further south, that large crater Maurolycus and those other slightly smaller craters further south of it
- The cluster of craters near Curtius, close the south pole, were very distinct in my telescope view.
Clip from USGS Moon Map (South is down)
I figured out how to tighten up varius parts of the EQ mount, and also the tripod legs. This reduced the vibration dramatically, though not entirely removing it.
Though I was mostly happy with my view tonight, there did seem to be a lot of fuzziness in the image that was fading in and out. I never was quite certain if this was due to atmospheric effects, or something going on with my telescope, like moisture on the eyepieces. I could easily believe it was the atmosphere, since conditions had not been clear lately. Yet, sometimes the view would improve if I moved my eye around a little to the left or right of the eyepiece center.
