Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding: EINSTUX Wordo: TRUCK

  • Lunar Observations 2025-12-08

    I woke up a little earlier than usual this morning and realized that I could spare about 30 minutes or so for some stargazing. The moon was high and bright, so instead of stargazing I decided to focus on lunar observing. I broke out my old Jupiter 60-AZ and took it out in the front yard. The mount on the 60-AZ has some serious issues, but it is still workable enough for lunar observations. The temperature was cold at -21 ℉, but after putting on my Bat Thermal Underwear™ and three other layers of clothing, I was able to stay warm enough.

    Sketching the moon is not practical for me — there is too much detail involved, and I don't have enough time for it, usually having only about 30 minutes or so out in the freezing cold. But I can learn a lot by taking notes. For this, I set out a small table next to the telescope, and I laid out my Cambridge Atlas 3rd ed. Iopened up to the moon map on page 2, trying to make some identifications, which I noted down in my notebook right after coming back inside. I got back inside about 5:20am, after about 30 minutes of observing.

    The area I focused my observations on were near the terminator line, which I believe was just a little past 50 deg E. More specifically, I focused on the craters E of Mare Nectaris, and also the non-mare area that sits in-between M. Nectaris, M. Fecunditatis, and M. Tranquillitatis. The moon seemed too fuzzy with the medium magnification lens, so I stuck with the low magnification lens most of the time.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Programming

    • Call by value but the value is two pointers

      With push! from miscmacros you can cons onto that particular name whereas with mutate-cons! defined like this:

      (define (mutate-cons! val lis)
        (set-cdr! lis (cons (car lis) (cdr lis)))
        (set-car! lis val))
      

      You can change all instances of that particular list. Super dangerous.♥︎