Here are two very similar pictures of the moon. One taken with my 6 inch Skywatcher reflector and a Lumix GF7 camera. The other taken with the Seestar S50 2 inch refractor.

Do you have a preference? It might not be easy to decide as I’ve tried to make their size, orientation, contrast and colour as similar as possible. Here’s a higher resolution version. (I recommend that the high res pics are viewed on something a bit bigger than a phone.)

https://mega.nz/file/Q5J0xZpJ#R3Cr1oE-uMUuLBEs7Z8XLaDz6fhTS8WcgRQT1k5Sfk0

I’ll come back to this later. To maintain the air of mystery and suspense, I won’t say yet which picture came from which telescope.

I was hoping to show some splendid pictures of the total lunar eclipse from Friday morning. It was a beautiful clear sky all night with the forecast to remain fine. The moon was full and looked absolutely glorious, all ready to move into the Earth’s shadow. I had both telescopes set up and ready to go (even though my back pain was giving me hell). The S50 was going to do time lapse movies, while the Skywatcher would record high resolution pics. Then, with ten minutes to go, this happened…

And here’s a short movie of the clouds doing their thing, getting in the way.

https://mega.nz/file/d94gEYAR#avI8f17wZWyNmsQcY_yk6zEAGqWwSyGBJx7U-8aRu_Q

I waited for about half an hour, hoping that the cloud was just temporary, but it just got thicker and thicker, until the moon was completely obscured. So I put all the equipment away and came back inside. Just after dawn, when the moon had set, the sky cleared again. If I was so inclined, I might suspect that someone was trying to tell me something.

Here are some pics from those who were more fortunate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr42k4qpr7go

Still, we had some lovely clear nights over the last week or so. I managed to enlarge my set of waxing moon phases. Adding in some from January, it now looks fairly complete.

On the night of the thinnest crescent moon, I also took an overexposed shot to reveal the part of the moon in shadow.

And on the night of March the 7th to 8th I took one of those comparison photos that shows the terminator moving overnight.

https://mega.nz/file/14Y0yZoZ#TN-ONWQ_APudub341L5jjr5Hnk73Yut0EyRSNqvYV8E

The waxing moon is the easy bit though. It appears from early evening and usually means going out either just before, or just after, tea. The waning moon is very different. It’s OK getting the initial stages, but the later crescents mean being out early in the morning close to dawn. Let’s see how dedicated I can be.

Now back to the telescope comparison at the top. Personally, I can’t tell a lot of difference between the two when viewed on a web page. However, when you zoom in, the difference becomes more obvious.

https://mega.nz/file/4lwjVDZS#s_2lEd2iIk4RbKo7wOeVH0gzIPrjMsW9db28WiYD1uA

In both cases, the right hand picture comes from the larger, six inch, scope. The close up illustrates the much higher resolution that the larger scope is capable of. This is what I’ve found using the smaller smart telescope over the last couple of months. It’s absolutely fantastic for just putting outside and telling it to go take a picture of something. Incredibly easy. It produces amazing results for publishing on the web. But take a closer look and its pictures are all a bit fuzzy. It wets the appetite, making you want to try to do something better.

The larger scope can produce much more detailed pictures, but it isn’t “smart”. It takes a lot of fiddling about to keep it on target and to keep taking images.

Oddly enough, the manufacturer of the smart scope also supplies a lot of higher resolution, and much more expensive, equipment. If this is a clever marketing strategy then I have to say it’s working. I’m looking at their more expensive gear. This little box of tricks, for example, can turn almost any scope into a smart scope.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi2600mc-air-wireless-smart-camera.html

But just look at the price! I think I might have to save up my pocket money for that one.

And finally, this morning’s nearly full moon.

https://mega.nz/file/Z1oEAQya#CVKKdHK0V3Gy9I7Y2iSYfFg1eLB6xRdpuc5g1755iv8