Last Night's Luna - with a touch of Mars.

The skies were wonderfully clear last night at about 6.00 p.m.

It was a cold evening, with not even a breeze. Perfect conditions to train the telescope onto the heavens.

The obvious first target was the bright gibbous Moon, high above to the south west.

The Newtonian returned some lovely views of shadow formations in the crater Plato, and there was a long pointed shadow emanating from Mons Pico.

The seeing wasn't that good last night, but the f8 Newtonian did deliver several steady moments of clarity.

No doubt had it been a larger aperature telescope the lunar landscape would probably have had a slight case of the "wobbles".

Sitting quietly close to Selene was Barsoom, or as us earthlings call it Mars!

The telescope had its work cut out resolving any detail on this quickly shrinking planet.

Though credit to the Newtonian, it did return a fair decent image of the Syrtis Major.

Considering that Mars is now only 10.8 " in size I was surprised I saw anything at all.

With the nearby street lights and the Moon glow above I decided to pack up the telescope and get back to the warmth of the house.

Though not before I had my last look at the Gibbous Moon.

How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the Moon, and flowers

Matsuo Basho

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