Daytime Lunar Photo

After I finished converting my old EXOS2-GoTo tracking mount into a fully manual mount, I went outside to check on the gardens around the house.  I noticed that the moon was in the sky!  I don't remember the last time I saw the moon in the sky and I know I haven't observed the moon through any of my telescopes since last fall.  I decided to head back inside to grab one of my grab-and-go telescopes...  a small telescope on a lightweight tripod.  

This particular telescope is a Skywatcher 72mm ED refractor.  It is small and lightweight but has excellent optics.  I often use this same telescope for solar astronomy.  One of these nights, if we ever have a clear night when I am feeling well enough, I hope to do some nighttime imaging with it too.  

When I stepped outside with the telescope, the first thing I noticed was a bird up high in a nearby tree so I pointed the telescope at this bird....  it was a dove and the view of this bird was surprisingly crisp.  I was actually hoping to see a Red-Tailed Hawk but the view of the dove was pleasing as well.  Then I swung the telescope over toward the moon.  

I knew the moon would not be as crisp and contrasty as the dove I just viewed since the sky was daytime blue plus there were a lot of wispy clouds in the sky.  Once I had the moon in my view, I noticed that the atmospheric conditions were rather poor too.  Daytime lunar viewing always lacks contrast since the sky is not black so I was expecting that but the moon was warping and bouncing in my view which means the atmospheric conditions were poor.  Since it was in the 90s, I sort of expected lousy conditions.  Hot sunny weather causes more evaporation on the ground into the lower atmosphere.  Trying to view through this evaporation process is always rough.  This is like looking across a blacktop parking lot on a very hot day with those wavy heat currents warping your view.  

Regardless of the conditions, I decided to run inside to grab my Sony a6000 with a T-ring and nosepiece.  I pulled my eyepiece out of my telescope's diagonal and then inserted the camera in its place.  I captured a few photos hoping that one of them would be sharp.  This is one of these photos...

Even though it was daytime, I still captured some nice sharp detail...  a nice sharp limb, some sharp craters and some nice tonality for a daytime photo through wispy clouds!