Ever since we (well not really ‘we’, more like ‘she’) redecorated the study, my telescope has been back in my life. It stands with its back to me looking at the wooden slats of the blind that covers the large window in the study.

Well would that be a lovely view?” it seems to say to me, “South facing too…

For almost a month I let it sit there dormant, simply not in the habit of using it. Every time I wandered into the study I felt a twinge of guilt that since I had bought the thing I used it possibly twice or three times.

But then it happened. Sitting outside one evening, the 6th day moon was making its way across our little garden and Jupiter and Saturn were sloping overhead too. It was time to act and so I grabbed the scope and starting looking. I’m really glad I did too. Two nights later I was back out, this time with the digital camera in tow and among others, I took the above picture of the Lunar South Pole.

The Moon is a lovely thing to observe from your back garden. its easy, its obvious and its ever changing. Each night you get a different view as the line between light and dark, known as the Terminator, moves gradually around the lunar globe. All the various oceans, seas, mountains and craters are given a few hours of stage time and if you’re lucky you’ll catch sights such as Copernicus and Plato as they are highlighted by the shadows they create.

So if you have a small scope or pair of binoculars, the Moon is well worth a look. It sits almost 240,000 miles away and the light we see from the Moon takes just 1.3 seconds to get to us. There are numerous maps and globes of the Moon that you can get hold of the help aide your observations. You can find a good site here (http://www.penpal.ru/astro/map.shtml) which lets you simply hover your mouse over anything you can see on the Moon’s surface and it will tell you what it is. Very handy for a first time observer.