Sunrise on the moon

Tonight was the first clear night in far, far too long. But instead of staying out 'til midnight, I decided to try pointing the scope out my bathroom window to look at the moon and get to bed at a semi-reasonable hour.

And hey, not bad! Sure, it got pretty awful above 50X, but that was enough to let me see all kinds of things. I decided to sketch what I saw, and I'm glad I did; it's no great artistry, but it really forced me to pay attention to what I was seeing.

After a half hour or so, I took a break, then came back to look again and pick out the features I could recognize. There was Albategnius, Plinius, Manilius, and...hey, I don't remember that bright bit in Abategnius being that big. And what's with the bright spot in Mare Imbrium's shadow?

So I looked it the new bright bit, and it's Mons Piton -- 7000 ft/2100-odd metres high. And it hits me: I didn't see that before. It's a big mountain in the middle of shadow. It's just the other side of the terminator. Same thing must've happened with Albategnius. Holy crap, I just saw sunrise on the moon!

It shouldn't really be a surprise -- even though I'm still getting familiar with the moon I know how the terminator moves, and I know that it's gotta move sometime. But it was really, really surprising to see it in such a short space of time.