Thursday, June 24, 2010

Grimaldi, One Day to Full

Tomorrow is supposed to be the full Moon.
I think I already posted up full Moon pics, so it's going to be slim Moon pickings from here on out.
I just need images of a really new Moon, not to be confused with a New Moon(no Moon), like from one day old to around six days.
In other words, the first quarter.
The last quarter too.
In my opinion, that's when the Moon grabs my attention.
Slivers of light in the dark.
Oh, and don't forget, it's like two days until the Lunar eclipse!
Okay, one day until the full Moon:



There's almost nothing there that we haven't already gone over.
Tycho, Copernicus, and Kepler are all in their full glory.
In fact through the scope, there are tons of smaller impact craters that are literally glowing white.
Amazing stuff.
Oh, and I'm going to go back and put the main Moon features we've already gone over in the post titles so they are easy to find.
Here's tonight's challenge:



If you are using a low powered instrument, you just may be able to make out Grimaldi.
It will appear as a dark spot right on the Western edge.
It is a flooded crater about 222km in diameter. My book says there is an external wall that measures 430km.
If you can spot Grimaldi, try Hevelius(106km) and Cavalerius(58km). It will take a steady hand and maybe even a bit more magnification to see them.
Grimaldi should be easy though.
I saw it looking through this:



That's an inexpensive 8X monocular.
Steady it against something solid, and you have a portable observatory!
I carry it around with me when I ride; it's particularly useful at the beach.
To monitor uh, meteorological events.
Or something.
Moon Factoid:
The International Astronomical Union(IAU) is responsible for the naming of Moon features.

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