I'm pretty sure I discovered a ray last night 4/28/04 at 10:47 PM in the Crater Copernicus. That's 4/29 2:47 UT. I was in the midst of observing a feature on the moon at the ASH Naylor Observatory called Dorsum Grabau, which is named after the great uncle of a member of the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg, when I decided to snap some pictures. I noticed a thin shaft of light visually and upon inspection of images when I returned home I noticed the thin ray which changed in width throughout several pictures. The observation was made through a 12.5" f/6.5 Cave Newtonian and imaged afocally with a 40mm eyepiece and a Minolta Dimage A1 Digital Camera. Zooming in on Copernicus which is near the terminator I notice a thin shaft of light protruding into the crater. Over a 25 minute period I did see the shaft of light change in size. I'm attaching an image zoomed in (a little grainy) that shows the ray. Let me know what you think, and If things look right, please post this on the Ray page. Regards, Ted A. Nichols II President - ASH www.astrohbg.org

The Initial Predictions, Using Data in Original Reporting

Site Longitude = +76.750
Site Latitude = +40.260


Reproducing Lighting For: 2004/4/29 at 02:47 U.T.

Desired Solar Altitude =  +2.937(Rising),  Azimuth = +90.599

Feature = COPERNICUS
Feature Longitude: = -20.000
Feature  Latitude: =  +9.700

Average Co-longitude =  22.979

Moon's Altitude Restricted = N

In the Time column, D=Daylight, T=Twilight

                      ---- Moon's ----    -- Earth's --
                        Topocentric        Topocentric      -------- Sun's --------
   UT Date    Time     Alt°   Semi-Diam''  Long°   Lat°     Colong°     Lat°    Azim°

 2004/04/29  02:47   +53.772    929.40    -7.112  -6.129    022.996   -0.095  +90.599

Crater Description:

No description