Launching a Rocket INTO the MOON!!!

[CaptainHappy]

I saw this story on the news, and knew that some of our members are into astronomy, so I thought I would ask if they were going to try and watch???

(Yes this is a total lead in to STATFREAK, as I know he has a bazooka cannon telescope!!!   )

  , Are you gonna drag the big lens out to the desert to watch?

Just curious on my part, nothing more than that.

CH

[StatFreak]

That's quite the bottle rocket, eh?  Yes, I'm going to drag out the scope, but only as far as my backyard. I won't need to get to the dark skies of the open desert to see the surface of the moon, and it will be close to overhead at the time of impact.

[brichter]

Yup, should be good viewing from here also.

[CaptainHappy]

I don't have your guys' toys, so I am going to watch it on the news! 

I hope that it is not like the recent TV Movie with David James Elliot of JAG, where the moon breaks in half or something like that!

Does anyone think we will hear the "Man In The Moon" yelp in pain at the time of impact???? 

CH

[StatFreak]

...Does anyone think we will hear the "Man In The Moon" yelp in pain at the time of impact???? 

CH

No, we won't hear any yelps: he's a moon's moon.    He's had far larger impacts from big fat rocks thrown at him from the bleachers over the eons.


Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I saw it in my scope.   I had printed pictures of the moon's surface showing the point of impact in a mirror image and upside-down (well, I only had to turn the sheet around after printing the mirror image ) in order to match the view through the scope and zero in on the correct location.

I only have an 8" scope but it's an LX-200 and the mount is rock solid, so I was able to use a 6.4mm eyepiece, which gave me 312.5x magnification and a sharp, steady image. I have confirmed that I had the correct spot in my sights, and I thought that I saw some small reflections, but I'm not sure. At least I got to look at some very nice open clusters with my 20mm and 31mm Naglers earlier in the evening.

[brichter]

I put both 8" scopes out before I went to bed and set the CCD imager up on one, and set my alarm for 4:15 am. 

Got up and went outside, drew a bead on the impact site and waited. Saw a small flash right as my WWV-set clock hit the right time, no plume like they said we'd be able to see. 

Went back to bed, no pictures.

[CaptainHappy]

Even the pictures that they put out were pretty boring... The only thing that looked really good was their pre event animation that they put out to hype the event! I hope that did not cost as much as the actual mission??? 

CH