June 30, 2006

Daytime Moon

Last night I lured a bunch of my students out onto the roof (with the enticement of extra credit, natch) to look through telescopes. They always seem skeptical at first that you can see the Moon in broad daylight, but there it is. We're a few days past new moon, so it's riding steadily higher in the evening twilight.

This afternoon was spent cleaning up our old refractor; it's been about a year since we greased the gearing and oiled the joints. Much dust had accumulated in the eyepieces, as well, some of which is visible in this image. Now we're good to go for another year of starstruck visitors.

jun29_daymoon1.jpg
1/12 second exposure through a roughly 3-inch refracting finder scope on our century old 10-inch refractor. The darker halos are blurry motes of dust inside the optics, many of which were removed during today's cleaning. 2006:06:29 21:09:18 CDT
Posted by Milligan at June 30, 2006 03:56 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Awesome. About the same time last night I too was looking at the Moon: http://dwarmstr.blogspot.com/2006/06/moon-on-june-29th.html

Posted by: Dean W. Armstrong at June 30, 2006 06:34 PM (Permalink)

Hi Dean & Milligan,

I came upon this site by happenstance, and like what I see.

I too have encountered the amazement of people who find it hard to understand that the Moon can also be viewed in broad daylight. The lower contrast and blue hue gives it a whole different and unusual look - and it's a nice time spent watching the lunar surface as the sky gets darker in the eyepiece while the Sun sets. I have had good results using a polarizing filter on a daytime Moon too on my own scope and those of the Adler Planetarium.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v209/josephguzman/Adler/Lunar1.jpg

Here I took a digital shot during one of our Public sessions this spring at the Adler thru a 4" Classic Nikon Refractor. I left the circular eyepiece vignetting, as I think it adds a bit of interest.

Also,

I have enjoyed peering thru the Ryerson Refractor during my times at the U of C, and thank you Dean for the opportunity and hospitallity.

Respectfully,

Chicago Astronomer Joe
Administrator
www.chicagoastronomer.com

Posted by: Chicago Astronomer Joe at July 11, 2006 10:05 PM (Permalink)
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