Oct 31 2004

There was a nice sunset ray in Mare Crisium a few minutes ago.10/31 UT 06:00 11:00 p.m. PDT - it was still there 15 minutes later too.It lengthened some during the 10 or so minutes I observed it. It was about as long as nearby crater Taruntius, but quite narrow.

Rukl 37, SE shore of Mare Crisium, south of the flooded crater Lick and north of the crater Tebbutt. There is a distinctive mountain area of which I think is the source of crevice letting the sunlight through. I made a quick sketch.

We set up our F/9 AP180 EDT/19 Panoptic and the first thing we looked at was the shore of Mare Crisium. Now we have to wait for the moon to rise above a big pine tree. Jane

------------------------------

I watched the appearance of the double rays near crater Swift in Mare Crisium, first seen by Tony Donnangelo 3/2002 - which are still visible 09:26 UT. Just as Tony described them here http://www.lunar-occultations.com/rlo/rays/crisium.htm these two rays are just north of Crater Swift on the surface of Mare Crisium. I planned to observe these at 10:13 UTC according to the predictions, but they appeared an hour early.

Unlike Tonys description the rays are not exactly parallel in my observation. The northern ray is long and narrow, and is the same length as the long shadow on nearby crater Peirce. The Southern ray is is shorter (half the length of the northern ray) and fatter and curved like the letter "C". To find these rays, for anyone still observing, use RUKL 26. The rays can be found north of Swift, the southern one is about the same distance north of swift as Peirce is South of Swift, and the northern one is nearby. Got it?

Oh, Rima Cleomedes is quite distinct right now too.

------------------------------

Time 09:40 UTC Just as I was checking of the other two rays in Crisium (still visible 09:40 UTC), two more very short parallel rays appeared just south of the other two, which were still visible too. When I showed them to Mojo he said, "there's a whole flock of them now". So I am not sure if these count as rays or not as they are more like straight parallel shafts of light, but they sure are pretty.

f/9 AP180 AP binoviewer plus barlow25mm Zeiss Abbes 200x