Moon gazing 2023-02-26 Evening (Fairbanks, AK, USA)

About 6:45pm AKST I noticed Venus and Jupiter, lined up with the moon:

=> Stellarium Screenshot (Dusk)

The first quarter moon looked like an worthy target, so I decided to do some moon gazing, starting about 8pm. I focused mainly on the southern half, along the terminator line.

=> Stellarium Screenshot of Moon (South is up)

A few features that stuck out at me were

• The three big craters near Mare Nectaris: Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina

• Those five smaller craters in between them and the terminator line

• Further south, that large crater Maurolycus and those other slightly smaller craters further south of it

• The cluster of craters near Curtius, close the south pole, were very distinct in my telescope view.

=> Clip from USGS Moon Map (South is down)

I figured out how to tighten up varius parts of the EQ mount, and also the tripod legs. This reduced the vibration dramatically, though not entirely removing it.

Though I was mostly happy with my view tonight, there did seem to be a lot of fuzziness in the image that was fading in and out. I never was quite certain if this was due to atmospheric effects, or something going on with my telescope, like moisture on the eyepieces. I could easily believe it was the atmosphere, since conditions had not been clear lately. Yet, sometimes the view would improve if I moved my eye around a little to the left or right of the eyepiece center.