Moon Views

With Clear skies not coming very often at the moment, I took the opportunity to take a look at the 12 Day old Moon.
The outstanding areas of the Moon at this time are undoubtly, to the west of Mare Imbrium & Oceanus Procellarum.
To the North of Mare Ibrium are the edge on craters Babbage & Anaximander.
The Illuminated cliff faces in the north west of Anaximander are quite a sight.
Babbage itself has most of the crater rim & a central crater edge illuminated.
Moving to the brightest crater on the moon Aristarchus, we find the amazing 160km long Schroters valley, a collapsed lava tube or gigantic proportions, starting out at 500m wide & stretching out to 10km wide.
At the eyepiece it appears as a bright curving "hook" shape, terminating at Herodotus.
The Gruithuisen Lava Domes are quite a sight, looking quite different from the other rugged lunar terain.
Tried for some photos, but afocal is a bit tricky, will have to give the LPI a go next time. Above is a previous attempt showing some of the features mentioned

Gove Clear Skies

Its been ages since my last blog as I've BRB.
But here it is almost Xmas & in the middle of the Top End Buildup, but I have just had the best observing night in Ages !
Here is the story of how it went:
Sat Arvo 3-12:
Yee Har ... clear blue skies, horizon to Horizon here in Gove.
Time to take the IIS Observing challenge
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=69,251,0,0,1,0
for the club tonight.
Armed with a new observing list compliments of one of the good folks at iceinspace.com.au , I am now ready to go hunting deep space delights.
Report to follow tomorrow (hopefully good)

Sat Night 3-12:
Observing conditions:Transparency 9/10 Seeing 8/10
Started out with the 2 day old waxing moon & despite it's low altitude the detail was amazing, looking at craters side on & seeing the sunlit crater rims either side gave a fly-through experience.
The only thing missing was a chart showing the named features of the 2 day old moon, my charts start at 3 days old.
Venus, a lovely big bright crescent & Mars, were worth a look too.
Starting on the IIS challenge with the Saturn Nebula, I went star hopping with the 40mm 2" UO eyepiece, I was amazed to find the nebula "Blinking" on and off as I was looking at it
Then I remembered reading about the "Blinking" nebula, not sure if it is one & the same?
I imagine the effect is due to the difference in the sensitivity between the rod & cone cells in our eyes.
Next it was on to M30, a nice Globular Cluster without a condensed core.
Moving to M41, which to my eye, had a "?" asterism in the middle of it.
A few more club members (Don, Louise, Francois, Paul & Tim) had arrived by this stage, so we went looking at Andromeda Galaxy & companions, Tarantula Nebula, M42, 47tuc and more.
Later in the evening, the difference in the Crab Nebula (M1) compared to the previous night in town was quite striking, showing a condensed appearance, compared to the barely visible smudge seen from town.
Having had a few cool ciders, it was time crash out in the cruiser for the night ...... but wait, that's not all, the next morning at 4am .......
Stay tuned for the next installment

Sun Morning 4-12:
OK ... to finish the story.
Seeing was still good at 4am when I woke.
Uncovered the scope (very little dew anyhow) & headed for Saturn.
Stunning ! I could see all 6 of the visible moons, Cassini division, shadow on the rings & the Pale brown/yellow cloud belts.
The Eta Carina nebula was to good to pass up, with the humonclus nebula around the star Eta itself displaying a stunning black lattice structure, over the orange glow of the nebula.
I noticed a few Oroinid meteors as well, hopefully the orionids will put on a good early show before the brightening moon washes them out.
All in all a fantastic night, the best in months
I hope someone else out there had as good a night as we did !