StarGazing Night 2 !!

Tonight I raced outside again after himming and hawwing about bringing out the heavy (5lb 🤣) telescope and tripod to look at the moon. I get up early for work and would have to wait until about 11pm for a good shot of it so as to not be unimpeded from trees.

Anyway; I decided to try and view it through the tall Pine tree branches and low and behold I got another great view and glimpse. I then switched over to the 10mm lens I learned would give me twice as much focus. The math with these things is not as obvious as you would think. A novice like me thought that 20 was better than 10 but not in the astronomy world. 

Anyway I got a different view tonight obviously and I think I was looking at a crater called Schiller (pictured) above. 

According to Wikipedia: Schiller is a lunar impact crater located in the southwestern region of the Moon’s near side. The rim of Schiller has an elongated shape that is amplified by its proximity to the lunar limb. The long axis lies along a line running northwest–southeast, with the wider girth located in the southeastern half. There is a slight bend in the elongation, with the concave side facing to the northeast. Schiller is thought to be a fusion of two or more craters.

The crater rim is well-defined, with a terraced inner wall and a slight outer rampart. At the southeastern end, a smaller crater is connected to Schiller by a wide valley. Most of the crater floor is flat, most likely due to lava flooding. There are some bright patches that are most clearly visible under a high sun angle. A double ridge lies along the center of the northwest crater floor, forming a nearly linear formation that divides the floor in half.

I tried holding my phone to the lens but didn’t have much luck. I did manage to get the moon but it was not even close to being in focus; it was just a bright blob. I will be working on putting it in the mount adapter I have and hopefully will have a live actual image for you. 

• INTERESTING FACT LEARNED TONIGHT : Tonight I saw the moon 66X closer than I would have using the naked eye. The focal length of my telescope is 660mm and the formula is this. Divide the focal length by the lens size in mm; I used the 10mm tonight and thus magnification is 66. If I had used the 20mm the view would have only been 33X closer and thus as per the note I wrote above about the math involved in simple astronomy. I am having a great time right now and can’t wait to get more involved.

Cheers