I'm trying to work out when it happened.

Best guess is that it was August or September of either 1977, 78 or 79. Because I was outside with my recently acquired telescope, in the darkness, but it wasn't cold.

In the north where I lived as a kid, summers are bright until nearly 11pm, and I don't think it was that late. So late summer is likely.

I was looking at the moon with my 3 inch refractor, a smallish lens, and a 90° prism, with the moon high up, maybe 50° above the horizon.

2/

I was practicing tracking the moon, with the two axis adjuster knobs on the cheapo azimuthal mount, i was keeping the lower central area of the moon in my view.

It was very clear, bright and sharp, with lots of cool craters and shadows to see.

Suddenly, like a rock skipping across a lake, I saw a mark appear, headed "northward" across the face of the moon!

I gasped in shock, not sure what I'd seen.

3/

I ran in to tell someone, siblings or my mom, I don't recall. The reaction was disinterest, as if I'd said the most boring thing, like 'a bird flew past the house.' No interest, no reaction.

Seeing it, I recall being struck by the silence. It felt like something so dramatic should've made a noise, as absurd as I knew that to be. Funny that that was my first thought.

So I'd seen a thing so dramatic, yet there was nothing I could do with it. Nobody to tell, no Internet, no video!

4/

Haven't searched on the topic for a while, but I recall that I was previously unable to find an account of anyone else ever seeing a lunar impact in real time. There are before/after pics of impact areas of course.

I often wonder which craters are 'my' craters. It would prob be hard to figure out now, but would be fun to some day look through archival photos from that period and see if I could determine where and when the impact happened.

fin.

5/5