Bonfire Night Astronomy.

Our village was cloud free for several hours last night, this gave me the opportunity to go outside and observe.

The Moon was bright, Jupiter, and Saturn were high up, plus Mars would be around later in the evening.

I was spoilt for choice.

Jupiter first, not the best of seeing conditions, but the Newtonian returned a fair view of the Great Red Spot.

Time to spy the Moon. 

The gibbous phase, (my favourite), was just at the right position to show off the Moon Maiden.

She is always a welcome sight. I first made a post about this Clair-Obscur effect back in July 2012. 

Here is a link to that post - Moon Maiden - July 2012

Just after 7pm Mars could be seen climbing from behind the Frenni Fawr to the north east.

I did briefly observe Mars later in the evening, but there was no discernable surface detail, though the North polar cap was in evidence.

150mm/f8 reflector - "First Light".

Around 19h30m UT last night the clouds parted long enough for me to set up my new 150mm reflector (Thank you Nick).

A quick equatorial setup and straight over to Jupiter. Speed was of the essence as clouds were loitering over towards the south west.

Jupiter stood out really well through the 10mm ep (plus the x2 Barlow).

Both the South Equatorial and North Equatorial Belts were easily seen.

There was a transit of Io in progress, the shadow of Io was inky black and stood out well on the South Equatorial Belt. I didn't see any sign of Io itself. 

Those clouds were getting closer!

Time to have a quick look and La Lune.

The f8 reflector returned beautiful images of the craters near the terminator.

Simple afocal camera photography gave me the picture that you see below.

Crater Bullialdus was half filled with shadow, half filled with sunlight what a wonderful sight.

After a quick look around the remainder of the Sea of Clouds, it was time to pack up. 

The Clouds of Pembrokeshire had totally enveloped the night.

"First Light" views through the new f8 reflector show promise. 

Maybe tonight I'll get a glimpse of Mars.

Today's Solar Image ~ 03/11/22.

 The day started well enough, blue sky and a promise of sunshine. 

By 9.00am the clouds rolled in. 

Between the gaps I managed a couple of photos.

"A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."

Albert Einstein

Today's Partial Solar Eclipse.

Daybreak this morning the weather looked cold and eclipse miserable, it looked as if I might miss out on today's Sun and Moon waltz. 

My village and the  surrounding area is renowned for more than its fair share of cloud cover and rain. 

Its a pretty good bet that, if its raining in our back garden it will be dry and blue sky nine miles down the road in Cardigan.

So with telescope in suitcase we headed northwards to Cardigan town.

I had packed the telescope, two eyepieces and tripod. The Samsung S6 was to be my imaging device.

Spode's Law was in action, and as we arrived in Cardigan, the clouds rolled in to greet us.

No matter, soon we parked, and set up the telescope.

We were in luck, within five minutes the clouds parted and the eclipse was upon us. 

One thing I hadn't accounted for was the frequent rain showers. 

I could see the Sun above, but had to wait for the showers to stop before I could properly take out the telescope.

Eventually patience paid off and several photos were taken of the eclipse.

Initially I was going to image with a mylar filter on my refractor, but the little Ha telescope did a great job, and it managed to capture a couple of prominences.

Contrails & Enormous Mutant Star Goats.

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!

Clarkson crater vs Alphabet craters.

If you look up any Moon map or lunar software program, you can't help but notice that many of the main craters have smaller craters dotted around them with no names. 

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. 

At the end of the day I don't expect that any of the "alphabet" craters will be officially renamed. 

Though there's nothing stopping me making a personal Moon map, complete with several worthy amateur Moon watchers added.

Roland Clarkson definitely fits the title of worthy amatuer Moon watcher.

Sunlight on the edge of crater Halley.

This photo taken way back in 2009, with a 6 inch refractor, a wonderful telescope for imaging the Moon. 

Having viewed the Lunar features with several telescopes I have to say that six inch refractor was the favourite. 

Why I ever sold that refractor is a mystery!

 Skywatcher 150mm/f8 refractor - Nikon D50 DSLR

Here is a close up of sunlight on the edge of crater Halley, from the above photo.

Even though the telescope magnification was low on the original photo, I was able to further increase magnification via some simple software.  

A bit of tweaking with copy and paste can have many uses when it comes to chasing down the craters of the Moon.