From: David Ryle 
Subject: Burnham Ray observed
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:12:03 -0600

 . . .At 2:05UT a good look at Burnham showed the west rim which was very
bright, cut by a dark slice. The apparent break in the wall was allowing a
long shadow to fall west at the terminator and the shadow was split at the
far end mimicking the broken rim. The shadow ran across the western plain
and into the rising ridge of Albategnius close to Vogel A. I powered up to
260x from 174x to give a better view of the area. The ray appeared at this
magnification and was just a very thin line through the westward shadow.  .
. .
. . .Burnham's ray was widening and could be seen all the way to the base
outside of the western wall.   . . .
. . .By 3:20UT Burnham's ray was well defined and easy to see, yet shorter
as the shadows creep east to the source rim.   . . .

From: freeman@netcom.com (Jay Reynolds Freeman)
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 23:22:40 GMT
    As I posted before, it looks as if there will be an apparition of
the Burnham sunrise ray visible from North America in late afternoon or
early evening of Saturday, 15 March.  (The actual time is about 0230 UT
16 March.)  That time was calculated with the kind assistance of Harry
Jamieson and Rob Robinson, and was based on the sun angle above the
horizon when I tripped over the ray last June.  However, what I stumbled
across was an event in progress, so observers might want to start
looking before the calculated time.  (We had problems getting the
time-calculating programs to work correctly, so one might start even a
little sooner just to be sure.)

    Burnham will be hard to find at sunrise.  This small crater is
located at the soutwest corner of Rukl's map 45, approximately at
selenographic latitude 14 south, selenographic latitude 7 east.  The
obvious nearby landmarks for finding it are the great craters on the
east side of Mare Nubium, but they will be in darkness.  I suggest
observers first locate the prominent crater pair Theophilus and
Cyrillus, south of Mare Tranquillitatis (on Rukl map 46), scan west
(toward the terminator -- that's Lunar west, not celestial west) for
about one and a half times their combined length, to Abulfeda (on Rukl
map 45), then crater-hop not quite that same distance west again, to
find Burnham along the terminator.

    The Burnham ray is finer and more delicate than the Hesiodus one.
It extends from the west wall of Burhnam out across the adjacent plain,
not across the crater.  My observations last year were made with a 90 mm
refractor at 90x and 202x.  Both magnifications showed it well.

    I will be quite curious if anyone sees anything.  I know of no reports
of this apparition other than my own, and the weather for the weekend
does not look particularly promising for me to see it again, myself.

From: freeman@netcom.com (Jay Reynolds Freeman)
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 10:07:08 GMT
    Clouds above Palo Alto, California, hid the Moon for most of the
16 March apparition of the Burnham sunrise ray, but occasional gaps
between 0315 and 0330 UT, 16 March (1915-1930 PST 15 March) allowed me
to glimpse the tail end of the phenomenon with a 98 mm Brandon
refractor.  I observed with 110x and 164x; I did not notice the
remains of the ray with the lower magnification, but at the higher one
I could clearly see that the relatively smooth area west of Burnham,
which was already beginning to be lit by direct sunlight, was crossed
by a long, narrow, brighter region, emanating from the obvious gap in
Burnham's wall that spawned the ray when I saw it last summer.  This
was what was left of the effect -- reduced to a delicate contrast
instead of the sharp bright ray on black background that probably
appeared an hour or so earlier.

    Based on what I saw, I suspect the predicted time of 0230 UT was
about dead on, in the sense that I expect the ray was well-developed
and clearly visible at that time.  I have no idea how much in advance
of that hour it may have appeared.

From: briscoe@athens.net (Duke Briscoe)
Date: 17 Mar 97 20:33:29 GMT
I observed the Burnham sunrise ray at about 0730 EST (0230 UT).  I got a
nice view of it at about 220x with a 10" f8 newtonian.  It was interesting
to see.  I would like to know what put that gap in Burnham's wall; maybe a
smaller meteor impact?  Also, I was wondering if the crater was named
after Robert Burnham Jr., author of the Celestial Handbook.

There was another pretty phenomenon nearby;  I think it was more towards
the center of the moon from Burnham.  There was a line of three equally
spaced, equally bright star-like mountain tops appearing significantly
within the shadow.

Duke Briscoe