I was driving home around 9:15pm with the moon tempting me in the western sky, so when I got home around 9:30, I went out with my grab and go setup for a quick 60 minute session despite the humidity making me sweat profusely and continually fogging up the eyepiece. It was a nice session with a younger moon that I often observe. I tend to observe a lot around first quarter given how my yard is set up, but my neighbors removed a few trees last week, which lowered my western horizon and made this a great opportunity. A few fireflies flickered in the lawn as I set up, but thermacell I set up for mosquitos must have scared them off.
Scope: FS-60CB
Mount/Controler: Sightron Alt/Az
Eyepieces:4.5mm Delos, APM 1.25" Barlow (roughly 120x)
Observing Site: Midland, Michigan
Books: Reiseatlas Mond, Ronald Stoyan, Hans Georg Purucker
Conditions: 77F, humid and calm; Transparency: below average; Seeing: average
I started in the north and my attention was quickly drawn to the pair of Atlas and Hercules. Atlas was bright with the central peak illuminated. There was terracing on the western edge where the interior side of the crater was illuminated. The rim of Hercules was brightly illuminated, but the floor was dark. The eastern edge of Mare Frigoris was just beginning to be illuminated in the lunar dawn and showed a wide variety of textures all the way north to De La Rue. Cepheus caught my eye next with a small crater on the eastern rim standing out. The eastern portions of the floor were still dark, while the western were illuminated.
Moving south, many of the peaks and craters in the Montes Taurus were brightly lit on the terminator, but I couldn't really identify them. The central peak of Römer was illuminated along with a few portions of its rim. One particular feature that stood out was a crater, probably Römer A, on the terminator that had most of its rim illuminated and two ridges running for short distances southwest and south-southwest. The transition from the mountains to the flatter areas of Sinus Amoris was very apparent. The craters Hill and Carmichal both had illuminated rims and dark floors. Craters and peaks in this area stood out with Mons Maraldi looking like a white dot just to the north of the ghostly crater Maraldi. A trio of brightly lit peaks was in the same general area between Maraldi and Carmichael. Running in a line southeast from Maraldi, several other barely illuminated and flooded craters made a path towards the northern edge of Mare Tranquillitatis.
East of this area, Mare Crisium looked glassy smooth except for a few small craters in it. Of these, the trio of Swift, Peirce, and Picard all had dark floors, as did the slightly smaller crater Greaves to the southwest. On western edge of Mare Crisium, there was a ridge that ran roughly north/south and that was probably part of the crater Yerkes and its surrounding area. Between Mare Crisium and Sinus Amoris, the crater Macrobius was interesting visually due to the small crater on its western rim.
South of Mare Tranquillitatis, I stumbled on what was probably the most interesting feature of the evening. This was an X-shaped complex of shadows and ridges on the southern edge of Mare Tranquillitatis. It is slightly smaller than the more famous Lunar X, but has thicker "lines" almost as if it were a lowercase version of the letter written in a bold font. I believe it to be associated with a small series of mountains southeast of Seechi. Reiseatlas Mond does not identify this feature, so it will need to be something I look up elsewhere sometime.
The last named feature I looked at was the crater Gutenberg. As soon as I had looked at the moon, I noticed its keyhole shape. Its central peak was illuminated. So was most of its western edge, including the gap in its rim created by the flooded impact crater Gutenberg E. Between the keyhole edge and the terminator, some rugged terrain was visible. Aside from this, there were some bright peaks right on the southern limb of the moon, but I couldn't identify them. I have a lot of work to do to get better at understanding lunar libration and other factors that are an important part of observing along the limb.
Finally, while it wasn't visible to the naked eye in the twilight, Mars was about half a degree off the northeastern limb the entire time. It usually did not fit in the FOV, but when I would write a few notes, I frequently saw it before I adjusted the mount back to the rest of the moon. A lower power look would have been wonderful, but I left the other eyepieces inside.