GET TO KNOW THE MOON

6 Can you pick out the major features on the Moon? Many a stargazer has been distracted by the Moon, and it may even be why you got hooked on the night sky to begin with. Either way, it’s worth getting to know its geography. The best time to Moon-watch is the first week after new Moon, between its waxing crescent and first quarter phases. Night after night you can watch the Moon’s surface slowly being revealed to you, from major craters Tycho, Copernicus and Aristarchus to the dark-grey lava plains such as the Sea of Serenity, the Sea of Tranquillity and the Sea of Fertility. It may also be of interest to be able to identify where man walked on the Moon during the Apollo missions. With binoculars you can easily see the general location of Moltke Crater and the nearby ’Tranquillity Base’ in the Sea of Tranquillity where Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on 20 July 1969.