This has to be one of the most spectacular sights in our night sky..and so very close to us. At only 405,000 kilometers away it is amazing how few people have ever seen it with a larger telescope. It can be an emotional experience for so many…life changing even..so they have told us after a view through the telescope. Some have hugged us, some cried out in disbelief…it is so rewarding to share this experience.

For beginners to this world, one of the most important things amateur astronomers look for is seeing conditions. The steadier the air, the crisper the image and the details pop.

Mike focusing the camera to start photographing

“Excellent seeing means at high magnification you will see fine detail on planets. In bad seeing, planets might look like they are under a layer of rippling water and show little detail at any magnification, but the view of galaxies is probably undiminished. Bad seeing is caused by turbulence combined with temperature differences in the atmosphere, as explained by our good friend Attilla Danko and Alan Rahill on their “Clear Sky Chart” an amazing guide to conditions in the skies at one of 5166 different locations.

So..excellent seeing..incredible details, what photographers want, bad seeing, worth a look then better to have a glass of wine;) Good seeing can come in many places. Sometimes the coast, sometimes the top of a hill…last week it came in Ensenada-Baja, a few hours of incredibly calm crystal clear skies.

Our quest is looking for those clear steady skies when the moon is high enough to photograph. My husband uses an AsicamDSI 144mm astronomical camera to take thousands of frames looking for the clearest ones..I use a cellphone;)..yes his results are much more detailed, incredibly so, groups wait for his photos to pick out new moon details to record..I don’t have that kind of fan club but have fun just the same.

Cellphone shot of the crater Ptolemaeus and a whole lot more..

Yes, this was taken with the Samsung cell phone through the eyepiece of his telescope, an 18″ Starmaster Dobsonian with an incredible mirror. The trick is getting the shot before dark after that the camera can’t focus very well, which is great as he is tuning up the telescope I can play around a bit:)

Crater Ptolemaeus close up:)

OK..this is the real deal and what you can see through the telescope with a high powered eyepiece (Ethos 8mm)..man these just blow me away!

Ariadaeus Rill

So, if you happen to see a couple of crazy people pulling out all kinds of weird parts out of a large silver box in the back of a Tundra setting up what looks like a cannon, come on over and we’d love to show you the telescope, and a view of the night sky once it gets dark! It will be an unforgettable experience. The night these shots were taken here at the Estero Beach RV Resort I’d been talking to a Canadian couple from Alberta and they did come over with their son and have a look. It was hard to tell them that this was as good as it gets but Mike did his best and I think they went away with a whole new outlook on our Moon…it’s what we do..Moon you;)

Saludos amigos and looking forward to 2016 and lot’s of steady clear skies!