Yesterday afternoon I had a quick peep at old Sol, it looked as if a big chunk had been taken out of its limb.
For a moment it surprised me, then I quickly realised what was going on.
A passing aeroplane contrail was slowly drifting across the Sun, blocking out a portion of the limb as it slowly drifted by.
I'm glad to report that Douglas Adams' Enormous Mutant Star Goat had not started to devour our Sun, which had been my initial thought!
Worst still those dotted craters have been given the name of its parent crater with a letter of the alphabet stuck on the end.
For example, crater Gassendi has an array of alphabet craters scattered all around, a quick look reveals a, b, e, g, k, m, n, p, .... etc! where's the poetry in that!
My main interest in this blog post is the crater Gassendi A, there is a contender for a permanent naming of this crater, a very worthy contender. Clarkson!
As far as I know the IAU is responsible for naming the Moon features, if so, IAU please can you come up with more interesting names than Gassendi a,b,c,d,e,f..... etc!
I'm not advocating for the crater "Donald Duck", or crater "BigHolePieFace" just a simple nod toward many of the amateur astronomers who spent countless hours mesmerised by the light of Selene.
Here's an old newspaper clipping to further my case for Gassendi A to be renamed Clarkson crater.
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It was a quick walk this evening, out and about before the mist rolled in.
In that time I did manage a few attempts at photographing the Plough.
This is my first attempt at imaging with our Samsung A71. So far so good, the results are promising.
By setting the camera to four second exposure, and an ISO of 3200 I captured the above image.
I will have to make myself a tripod for the phone, that way I'm sure the images will be a lot sharper.
Can't wait to try my hand at capturing the Milky Way.
Oh boy was this Moon a wonderful sight to behold!
This year's Harvest Moonrise near Crymych was exceptional, luckily I was prepared.
My trusty 42x12 binoculars were sat on a nearby fence post, trained on the Moon, and the phone camera was placed (afocal) near the eyepiece.
A couple of seconds later the rising Moon was captured.
Some nearby bats were enjoying the Harvest Moon as much as Helen and I were, their presence was confirmed on our bat detector.
The sky was now dark, and every so often a bat silhouette could just be made out swooping towards and then hastily away from us.
The Moonrise was beautiful and the nearby bats added to the magic of the night.
The bat detector's squeeks and chirps made it all the more fun.
I didn't manage to sketch the recent Full Moon, but I had a go at the gibbous Moon, as seen with my opera glasses. It was a cold night,...
