14 February 2019, 18:45 – 20:15
A chilly evening after an unseasonably mild day – resulting in the heaviest condensation I've experienced to date, particularly on the secondary mirror. Fortunately, there was only one target tonight - a high, bright gibbous moon.
Seeing was variable with occasional moments of exceptional clarity (a finding backed up by the imaging tests). The moon was dazzlingly bright even at 240x (5mm Nagler) – at least until the condensation set in.
Visually, I saw 3 craterlets in Plato, the centre one clearly resolved.
Rima Birt (adjacent to the Straight Wall) showed up very well despite being some distance from the terminator. (I imaged this with the SP-102, but I don’t think I was ever quite able to see it through the eyepiece.)
Rima Hesiodus was long and very distinctive.
At least one rille was visible inside the rim of Pitatus.
Copernicus of course was the highlight, showing far too much detail to describe here, but the image below gives an idea of what was visible (the eyepiece view occasionally exceeded this).
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