Lunar Observing 2025-01-15 Fairbanks, AK, USA (publ. 2025-01-15)

The last few weeks have been very warm, with temperatures even jumping above freezing for several days. This is has been great for quality of life — we don't have a garage for the vehicles — but also the skies have been cloudy. This morning, temps were back down around 2 ℉, and the skies were clear again. I had about twenty minutes that I could spare before heading to work, around 5am. With a very bright, nearly-full moon washing out the skies, I decided to focus on the moon itself. I grabbed my old 60-AZ refractor and my lowest magnification eyepiece, and I observed for a few minutes out in the yard.

I focused on the east side near the terminator. Fortunately, my Cambridge Atlas (3rd ed.) has a great Moon map, so looking up names is not so hard now. Here are a few things I observed:

• MARE CRISIUM, with the little Picard (crater?) inside

• North of MARE CRISIUM were the three distinctive craters Burckhardt, Geminus, and Messala, lined up in a row

• I remember noticing a few other craters south of MARE CRISIUM.

• MARE FECUNDITATIS also drew my attention

• The rugged terrain south of MARE FECUNDITATIS stood out

This was at 28x magnification. If I had more time, I would have tried out the 12.5mm eyepiece as well.

Sorry, I don't do lunar sketches. But hopefully Robert will get some clear skies soon.

Copyright

This work © 2025 by Christopher Howard is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

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