Observing Luna.

I took out my first telescope for a spin tonight.

The etymology sites say that "gibbous" arose from the original latin
"gibber," to describe hunchbacks. But that's not what the moon struck
me as. Rounded but elegant, and draped at the edges - teasing and coy
- with smoke-grey clouds, I thought the moon had the elegant curve of
a woman's hip. And, much like a woman, she played hard to get! I never
appreciated how quickly celestial objects dart across the sky; I
barely caught Luna in the eye-piece before she was already slipping
onward.

It was clearly a beautiful sight. I'd taken binoculars to the moon
before, but I had not seen such exquisite detail. I initially viewed
her without a lunar lens, and the vibrancy of that bright light
brought home to me just how lucky I am. I could not afford some multi-
thousand dollar scope, and had no great training - and already I could
see in detail the craters and valleys that Galileo could infer only
from shadows. Yet even with those mere shadows at the edge between day
and night, he advanced a foundational science, and the state of
modernity.

I did have a lunar filter, and I then put it in, using a 5mm lens.
That was when I began poring over her details in a manner I'm more
accustomed to doing at benchtop. I've had no shortage of occasions to
spend hours at a microscope, counting cells and observing the tiny
changes of branching mammary ducts. Stevinus was the first crater I
identified, and it was exciting to be able to relate something on
paper to an actual stretch of desolate planet. More fully getting used
to the fine adjust knobs, being similar to a microscope, I began to
move more confidently - I quickly found the mare serenitatis, and mare
tranquillitatis. It struck me that with tiny twists of my fingers I
was moving across significant fractions of an entire planet. Using the
seas of serenity and tranquility as my guide-posts, I found my way
first to mare crisium, and then in the other direction I moved more
purposefully - finding first palus somnit, which appeared to twinkle
white along its edge in my viewfinder. I then wanted to find the
mountains that Galileo last observed. I think I found the Apennine
Mountains, though I'm not altogether sure - perhaps just a bit beyond
my scope's ability to resolve, I identified the white irregular
crescent in the area where they should have been, but no more than
that.

It was a fun evening, if short. I tried then to find the north star.
It was not readily visible, nor the little dipper it ought to have
been attached to. Taking the moon's path as my east-west axis, though,
and bare branches on one side of the trees to locate north, I did find
what I suspected to be Polaris. My binoculars traced out the sweep of
what I think was the handle of the little dipper, but the scoop was
missing - as were most of the stars in the sky. I could not
successfully get my scope aligned on Polaris, and after trying for a
while, I called it a night. I hope to become sufficiently handy with
polar alignment and navigating RA/Dec to be able to catch sight of
Saturn before this month is over.

Howdy JH,
A very eloquent post! While I'm primarily a deep sky person, I do
occasionally enjoy the moon. I've learned the larger and more prominent
landmarks, but beyond that, I rapidly get lost in the everchanging
jumble of light and shadow. There's a very nice site for moon observing
at www.inconstantmoon.com .
As far as polar aligning, I'm strictly a visual observer, and an
extremely crude alignment is all I need. I find a halfway flat spot to
plunk my tripod, my wedge is already set to my latitude, (I use an SCT,)
and then I just bolt the scope on and point it roughly south. Good
enough.
Marty