From: "Milton Aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: December 3, 2006 12:57:47 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: New Lunar Dome?

Hi Folks;

On friday I replaced the factory philips head collimating screws with

a set of Bob's Knobs. On saturday night I got clear skies and managed

to get it well collimated. Astro IIDC worked really well for doing

that so that I could tweak the collimating knobs with one hand, use

the other hand to re-center the star using the hand controller and

watch the star on the laptop display from about 5 feet away.

Since I had the camera all set up and the moon was above 35 degrees

then, I decided I'd try to take a few shots of Marius Hills,

Aristarchus and Mons Rumker. The skies were clear and turbulence was 3

down to 2 out 5, so I shot at prime focus on the C8 at F/10 or 2000 mm

focal length using the Flea color camera. I've included the "normal"

color and then the color enhanced versions here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Lunar/Luna_Rumker_Dome_20061202_MJA.jpg

I was imaging Aristarchus, then Mons Rumker (which was just sticking

up above the terminator) and  then up to the north pole area. After

log stretching and a bit of sharpening, I noticed a large dome like

structure to the north of Mons Rumker in Sinus Roris (see color

enhanced version in lower half of image). I don't recall ever seeing

this reported anywhere and it doesn't show up on any of the online

sources I've seen, like Lunar Republic. I've found one image of the

area, but it was shot at higher sun angles and at higher angle to the

observer.

Unfortunately the turbulence got worse so I could not get any good

shots at 2x or 3x with a barlow, and then it clouded over which put an

end to my imaging for that night.

I've sent the image to Chuck Wood of LPOD to see what he thinks it is.

Clear Skies..

Milton Aupperle