The seeing was fairly good for the area, a bit of rippling air texture overlaid the crisp shadow detail along the southern edge of the otherwise brilliant nearly full Moon. The dazzling starburst 'ray’ pattern around Tycho crater is the most prominent full moon landmark, and its streaky 'rays' were draped across the irregular southern terrain. A few isolated tall mountains stood out over the edge of the disk, or the 'limb' and a few shadowed crater rims nearly skirting the edge gave striking illusions of tall precipices across the region the Prospector was destined to plunge. The time came and went, I studied this region which sported much flickering fine detail and textures, and saw nothing. I scanned along the dark skies with the Moon just out of frame and saw no expanding envelope of debris nor any angled dust spray. I really didn't expect to, but it was nice to look at the Moon and know something was happening there for the first time in over a quarter century.

It brought back just a bit of the old thrill of the Glory days of Apollo to know the hand of man was at work on this nearby world. After the event was over I swung the telescope towards two rising planets, first bright Jupiter rising above the trees. Its flattened bright disk was escorted by the four large satellites, and the globe was white in the equatorial zone, ivory across the rest of the disk, and two prominent tan-brown belts with irregular edges separating the two major color zones. More fainter belts swam in and out of visibility in the higher latitudes.

Next I glanced at Saturn and was delighted to see the bright rings nearly widened enough to cover the poles of the planet. Saturn’s shadow is especially prominent now, and the ringed planet is looking strikingly three dimensional. I can't wait to see the Hubble photos being taken around this time and as the rings widen.