Monday September 8, 2003
Moon closeup

The moon was so bright it hurt to look at. Even with a filter it was like getting a lunar laser tattoo right on the retina.

The nice thing about lots of light is that you can run it through lots of lenses. This shot is through a 10mm lens using a barlow extender, resulting in 5mm or 200x magnification. If the moon looks off it's because the telescope reverses the view, the camera is at another angle, and I'm too lazy to try and correct it afterwards.

I call this area hop-skip-and-jump since it features a series of craters lined up like Happy Rolling Ball. They were clearly defined to my eye, but the camera didn't see things quite the same.

We were working against encroaching dew to capture these. What do you do about dew? Circulating fans? Desiccant blankets? I'm sure I'll be much happier stargazing in the heart of winter when my only worry is why I can't feel my nose or fingers anymore.

Moon 97 percent full