Backyard M
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Backyard Mn
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Present lunation in Latest Photos - recent lunations in Recent - further back try Archive from above menu (this is a rambling website - just rummage through it!)
Lunation 1028 - Jan 29th - Feb 27th 2006
Clouds on the 24th, 25th, 26th Feb 2006
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| Pretty - as the sun goes down on the
24th Feb. Blessed nuisance after that though!!!!!!!!
Next new moon 00:32 28th February |
18th Feb 2005 - just! - 19 days 1 hour moon
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| About an hour and a half later 00:40 UT
- moon now SSE and altitude around 15 deg
From now on it will be too late, too low and too far south to catch properly from the backyard |
Thin icy fog around - Moon near
bright Spica in Virgo but no stars to be seen. Pic through binocs
and window
Look for the Moon rising near Jupiter after 01:00 on the 20th (late Sun night/ early Mon morning) |
17 Feb 2005 - 19 days moon - just!
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| 23.15 UT - Moon had risen about 3/4 hr before - altitude around 6 deg, in SE - in trees, rising above roof | A lot of cloud and mist around - no details - tomorrow it will be near this height around 00:30 UT |
15th Feb 2006 - 17 day moon ...
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17 day moon
Clouds began to clear as the night wore on and before midnight the seeing steadied a little |
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In the north, the terminator caught the
big craters beyond Atlas and Hercules. The
sun picked out the peak in Hercules and, I
think, the smaller crater Maury (17.7km) on
the edge of the Lacus Somniorum
The interesting Posidonius is not yet picked out by the shadows |
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Mare Fecunditatis
on the edge of the shadows with the twin Messier
craters with their rays showed up well in
the Tal.
The battered shapes of the craters on the Montes Pyraneaus on the NE of the Mare Nectar catch the light but the magnificent Theophilus is dull yet. |
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The 12 day moon on the 10th gave us an
owl, but the very old crater Janssen with
Brenner and Metius on its northern edge
look like a rabbit?
To the NE you can see the longest valley on the moon, the Vallis Rheita - about 500km long |
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| Sunset - 17:15 UT - looks lovely but not a good sign for later viewing ..... | Duller in the east, lots of cloud - Moon due to rise at 19:58 UT ........ not hopeful |
14th Feb 2006 - 16 day moon
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| Set up and waited for the moon to clear the roof and trees ........ then it clouded over and rained! Ah well! |
10th Feb 2006 12 day moon
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| 17:30 UT quick look in case of cloud (or snow) later ... | Owl??? Billy and Hansteen make the eyes with Mons Hansteen as the beak |
9th Feb 2006 - 11 day Moon
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| 11 day Moon
Sinus Iridum - the bay of rainbows has stopped floating in the shadows now |
Gassendi always looks new and crisp when the sun catches its mountains - 110km across with a depth of around 3km Mare Humorum is an ancient impact crater formed between 3.92 to 3.85 billion yrs ago. You can see wrinkle ridges in its lava floor. |
Kepler
is a young (in moon time) crater, still with a bright ray system just
starting to shine here - like a mini Copernicus but with no central
mountains
For more see Moon Observers Guide (Peter Grego) and Modern Moon (Charles Wood) - details in Links |
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Saturn was too clear and high
to ignore - left is a single shot from the Tal, x40 x3 x camera
zoom. Through the Tal I could see the Cassini divisions in the
rings, and a cloud band on the planet, plus moons (forgot to check 'em!)
Right is a 'graphic' of Sigma Orionis, the bright star below Orion's belt. Could see just one of its multiple stars but this bunch made a nice picture, filling the field (as above) |
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Daytime Moon - 8th Feb 2006 - 10 day 15 hr
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Shooting the daytime
Moon
With the likelihood of something going wrong later, I took the Bresser out into the sunshine at 15:30 till 16:00 |
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Pale but beautiful, Clavius
more in the southern sun than last night
Plato now showing in the north |
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7th Feb - 9day 23hr 22:00 UT
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Had been raining, thick cloud but just before 10pm I
spotted a few gaps ...
And the 9day 23hr moon kept appearing through the fast moving clouds |
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The ancient Pre-Nectarian crater W Bond in the north; the Vallis Alpes cutting through the mountain range; Aristoteles (Eratosthenian age) and the young Eudoxus (Copernican age) craters and the nearly filled in Cassini (Lower Imbrium age) |
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And Copernicus itself, formed about around 900 million years ago |
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Youngest prominent crater Tycho, only about 100 million years old above battered Clavius from Nectarian times |
6th Feb 2006 - 8 day 23hrs - and clouds .......
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3rd Feb 2006 - between the clouds! (more cloud on the 4th and 5th)
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| Thick, pink cloud rolling over but telescopes are great
for picking out light through any thinner breaks - here is the high 5 day
moon at 19:00 UT with the Bresser
Theophilus, first of the massive (104km) craters on the edge of the Mare Nectar was showing clear - formed 3.2 to 1.1 billion years old - oceans had formed on Earth by then with stromatolites already living in the warm water - but there was no water in the lunar seas. There are still stromatolites (like blue-green bacteria) growing in today's seas (pic from Boulder). What a difference water makes??
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| View looking into the murk overhead - breaks were few - not hopeful |
30th Jan 2006 - cloud ... 31st Jan - mist!! and more cloud 1st, 2nd Feb
29th Jan 2006
| New moon - tomorrow the moon sets around 18:05 after sunset at 16:48 in the SW. Will need a clear view low to the SW - that rules me out!! |
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| Went Messier hunting for
M 35 an Open Cluster in Gemini - Main stars
shown, lots more little ones
(rough graphic, north up, east left) about the size in 20mm obj with Bresser Skylux (x35) |
New Moon on the 29th at 14:15
