Hello, and first off how is everyone faring in the zombie apocalypse current situation? I hope everyone is well. I’ve been out for five nights in a row, which is bloody unusual for March where I live. I went out yesterday in the early evening to catch Venus and the Moon. At 18:00 GMT I was set-up and the scope was cooling nicely. It was still daylight and the wafted smell of barbecued food was emanating from somewhere or other.



Venus was (more or less) at dichotomy and I was banking on the lunar terminator to show the Sea of Crises and the Petavius Rille well.



I decided to use the 127mm Sky-Watcher SkyMax and my William Optics binoviewer. The WO BV’s may not be the best in the world but I like them.



They’re often referred to as ‘gateway’ bino’s as owning them leads to buying more expensive units apparently lol.



I only used the 20mm WO SWAN’s and 15mm SuperViews combined with a WO 1.6x GPC. These gave about 123x and 164x respectively.



It took me a while to position myself well as I like to sit immediately behind the OTA. Eventually I could see the Moon but it took me a few moments to locate Venus.



Venus looked good at both magnifications although I preferred it at 123x as it was more defined and moved less quickly on an alt-az. I thought there was a hint of cloud detail near the equator but it was very faint and I could have imagined it. There was still daylight enough for the glare not to be a problem and I also had a single polarising filter threaded into the GPC. As it got darker I removed the polarising filter and switched to viewing the Moon.



First thing I looked for was the Petavius Rille and I wasn’t disappointed. Conditions were still decent regardless of the fact that the Moon was setting. Inevitably I replaced the SWAN’s again for the SuperViews and 164x. The SuperViews aren’t expensive eyepieces but they’re easy to merge and are lightweight on the bino unit. There are often varying FOV’s claimed for them, although that’s a bit irrelevant for my bino’s as they can only give 66° anyway (I believe the SWAN’s are actually 72°). I could see a lot of detail and some of the larger craters in the Sea of Crises including in the Dorsum Termier region. The 'Wrinkly Ridge' was magnificently awesome. The large crater Endymion was particularly impressive at both magnifications and I could see a fair bit of detail in the crater wall itself.



As the Moon got lower I could detect a slight ‘boiling’ of the image and a bit of a breeze was occasionally rocking the scope slightly. So, after having a quick butcher’s hook at M42 I called it a night. I’d been out observing five nights in a row, which is pretty good for late March.



Simulated images by courtesy of SkySafari 6 Pro & Moon Atlas