from Bill Arnett on 11/3/2000:

As I type this there is a *double* sunrise ray on the floor of crater Reaumur (Rukl 44). I first noticed the rays at about 8:40 PST when they were very thin. But alas, the Moon is setting for me now and the seeing has become too bad to see anything anymore. If any of you are a few hours west of me now take a look!

The rays almost perfectly trisect the crater. As usual they appear to come from low spot in the eastern wall of Reaumur. The whole western rim is alight but the whole crater floor is dark except for two tiny thin lines of nearly equal length which cross it nearly completely. Very cool!

I'm also looking at that area of the moon tonight, and saw the double sunrise ray in Reaumur. It's still visible at 9:25 PST. I'm about to move on to Jupiter - two mooning scopes on the back deck which are nearly done for the night, and one out on the front deck. We're trying out our new 2.2 and 3.8 mm Orion Lanthanum eyepieces on the f/6 4" Traveler tonight.

On 11/3/2000 @ 8:40 PST the universal date and time was 11/4/2000 @ 4:40UT. Bill's coordinates are 112.2W 37.43N. By running predictions using site coordinates, date and time of the event, it was determined that the event could be seen when the sun was 1.307 degrees rising, with an average colongitude of 0.609 degrees. This data was used to compute the predictions, found on the prediction page.

Starting Date  = 2000 / 10 / 1  U.T.
Site Longitude =  112.20   Latitude =   37.43   Elevation =  120 meters
Feature = REAUMUR
Longitude =   0°42'  Latitude  =  -2°24'
Reproducing Lighting For:  2000 / 11 / 4  at  4 : 40  UT
Desired Solar altitude =   1.307° (Rising),  Azimuth =  88.501°
Average Co-longitude =   0.609
In the time column, D=daylight, T=twilight

                      ---- Moon's ----
                         Topocentric     -- Earth's --    ------- Sun's -------
   UT Date    Time     Alt°  Semi-diam"   long°   lat°    colong°   lat°   azim°
 2000/11/ 4   4:40    17.57    896.95    -1.85    2.59      0.67    1.44   88.50

Reaumur, +013 -040: A fine example of a ruined ring, 30 miles in diameter, with very fragmentary walls, especially on the north-east. What remains of the west wall is divided by fine valleys or ravines, and there are craters on the south. On the floor are craterlets and a cleft on the west; another cleft on the north can be traced across Sinus Medii. Outside the west wall is a cleft. On the southern exterior is a double crater from which a cleft runs north-west, with another running west towards Hipparchus. There is also a lager crater, A, and a crater chain. - Wilkins and Moore, The Moon, Faber and Faber, 1955