Amazingly clear tonight

Despite the Clear Sky Clock predictions, tonight had incredible seeing (i.e. very still air). Mars yielded great detail all the way up to 266x: the polar ice cap was bright and clear, and two of the major surface albedo features (which I think were Mare Acidalium and Syrtis Major) were also very distinct.

I then turned my attention to the moon, which gave tremendous views of various craters and rilles - 266x was again the best magnification, although the view through the widefield Ethos 13mm (215x) was also fantastic because of the "spacewalk" effect of 100 degrees AFOV. One crater that caught my attention in particular had a very large central peak (mountain) that looked like it is comprised of three components. I am pretty sure this is Theophilus. This crater is 64 miles across, and has a rim that is 14,000 feet deep. It is thought to have been created somewhere between 1 billion and 3 billion years ago.

The night was so clear that I could easily make out the terraces in the crater rim - apparently these are due to landslips that have taken place over many millenia. The central mountain, which rises to a height of about 2km consists of three peaks - each of which were easily visible through the telescope.

Observing at Crestview Park

This weekend was the first clear one in many weeks, so I took the telescope up to Crestview Park - which is the observing location used by our local astronomy club. While not a dark sky location in the real sense of the term, it is about as good as it gets in our suburban location. My 9 year-old son had a lot of fun helping to set up, and observing. We stayed late enough in the evening to catch Saturn once it rose out of the horizon haze.

The cardboard box is my makeshift shield for the PC - keeping dew off the laptop, and keeping light from the screen out of our fellow observers' eyes.