Tag Archives: Craters

THE EASTERN TRIO

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This entry is part 39 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

The moon is just a thin crescent in the bright twilight sky as this trio of craters creep out from the lunar night. The large one on the right is Endymion (129km dia.) an ancient walled plain that was formed about 4 billion years ago (b.y.) . It’s accompanied by the younger Atlas (90km) below center with it’s contained system of Rimae Atlas a mere 3.2-3.8 b.y. old. It has a impressive ejecta blanket to the east and south where the material was piled up outside the crater wall. Atlas is followed by the shadow filled Hercules (71km) to the west, the youngest of the trio at 1.1-3.2 b.y. old. Above Atlas is a very young crater Keldysh (34km) and between them the totally ruined crater Atlas E. It’s obviously older than Atlas since the ejecta from the Atlas impact is splattered across the whole width of Atlas E. To the east (right) of Atlas is a large flat area. … Continue reading →

A Platonic journey

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This entry is part 38 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

I always look forward to the appearance of the 104km diameter crater Plato and surrounding environs as they emerge from the lunar night. There is so much to see there I find imaging irresistible. Usually I don’t like to do this wide a field but there’s much to enjoy. Plato’s terraced walls exhibit ancient slumping and breaches by rimae. South of Plato are the sparkling Montes Teneriffe with 2400m high Mons Pico the large peak on the east (right) end. To the east of Plato is the great gash Valles Alpes with it’s central rille seen here (with a 6″ telescope) with another isolated mountain peak south of the entrance to the Vallis, Mons Piton (2250m) standing isolated on the plain of Mare Imbrium. In the lower right corner of this image is Cassini (60km) with it’s tight ejecta blanket surrounding and interior wrinkles and satellite craters. Above Plato is a large flat region that is Mare Frigoris, the longest … Continue reading →

Pear-shaped craters

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This entry is part 37 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

North of Theophilus, in the lower left corner of this image, is Sinus Asperitatis running diagonally across this image, with the pear-shaped crater Torricelli in the middle. The crater is listed as 24km diameter which refers to the larger portion with extension adding a few more kilometers to the west. This odd shape is due to the merge of two impacts though the wall between the two is very low step. It sits on the northern edge of an unnamed ancient flooded crater some 90km across whose walls can be made out in this low angle sunset lighting. Near the bottom middle of this image is the shadow filled crater Isidorus (43km) that appears pear-shaped as well. Note how the mountains around Isidorus are soft looking, overlain by ejecta from the tremendous Theophilus impact. Compare them to the peaks north of Torricelli. You will see at the top edge of the image the crater Maskalyne (26km) and left *(west) of … Continue reading →

Another dome home.

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This entry is part 36 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

When the Moon is not quite 10 days old you can get a good look at a few of the more obvious domes in the Mare Nubium area south of Bullialdus. The first key is to locate Kies, the 46km diameter crater at the top of this image with the little tail pointing down. Notice the mild swelling just to the left of the crater. This is Dome Kies Pi or K1. It’s 10km in diameter with a little 2km craterlet at the summit, just barely visible here. Going further to the left there are two small clusters of mountains. Just above the farther one is another mild swelling, K3. A third dome is just off the end of the tail of Kies but I never have gotten a good image of it. It may be just to low a feature. Below Kies you see a graben-like rima, Rima Hesiodus that runs some 309 km from Hesiodus just south of … Continue reading →

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This entry is part 35 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

Seven days into this particular lunation, we had a favorable libration just at the northern edge of the limb on this image. It allowed for a very good view of a couple craters not usually seen so well. The large dark area in the lower left is the north shore of Mare Crisium and Mare Angius the dark meandering patch on the right side of Crisium. Notice just above it is the large crater Cleomedes (129km dia.) and above that is the well defined Geminus (88km). Then at the top edge of the image is Messala (128km) with its nicely terraced walls. Moving towards the limb you see another fairly well defined crater, Berosus (77km) and to the lower right another similar sized crater with a curious dark stripe across it’s floor, Hahn (87km). It appears from Lunar Orbiter images and the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: 1:1 Million-Scale Maps of the Moon, that most of the northeast half of the … Continue reading →

South of Heraclitus

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This entry is part 33 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

Early in every lunation you can see this region on the moon and though I have covered it before, I discovered some remarkable new things on this particular visit. First a little orientation. Notice the Mickey Mouse configuration in the upper left. The left ear is the crater Licetus (77km diameter) and the right is Cuvier (also 77km). Between them is the unusual north-south elongated feature, Heraclitus with an odd central ridge. This is the result of a merger of two or three craters. The large flat floored crater near the center of this image is, Manzinus (100km). Then the large crater on the right edge of this image with the central peak is Vlacq (92km). This should serve to give the outlines. When processing this image, a montage of two images, I thought I saw an artifact of the knitting process about midway up the terminator. It’s a little dotted horizontal line and above the left end the barest … Continue reading →

North by Northwest

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This entry is part 32 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

A day or two short of the full moon, depending on the libration, on the northwest terminator of the moon you will find a remarkable crater that catches the eye. This is Pythagoras (133km dia.) with beautifully terraced walls and a central peak that casts great shadows across the western side of the crater and the west wall. The extreme near limb presentation of this magnificent crater gives us the opportunity to see just how shallow craters are. When on the terminator near the center of the moon, they look like deep wells but in this case the depth is only 4.8 km or 3.75% of the diameter! Shallow indeed! You can see this for yourself by making a 100mm diameter crater that is only 4mm deep. The large non-circular crater in front of Pythagoras is Babbage (148km) and to it’s left is Oenophiles (70km) and further on is the smaller Markov (43km). To the lower right of Pythagoras is … Continue reading →

North of Brahe

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This entry is part 40 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

Center bottom we have the spectacular crater Tycho (diameter 88km) the center of the largest ray system on the Moon that completely wraps around the globe. This is two days after the terminator passed over this crater and already the sun is high enough to show the rays without washing out some of the topographic details. For orientation purposes, the large dark crater at the top is Pitatus. Just below that are two similar sized craters Gauricus (82km) on the right and Wurzelbauer (90km) and off to the right is a much smaller well defined crater with a fairly dark patchy floor, Hell (34km). To the left of Pitatus and you’ll see one of the better double walled craters on the Moon, Hesiodus A (15km) looking like a little bulls-eye target with the small central peak. The parent crater Hesiodus (44km) is above it with a small 5km central crater. Going back to Tycho we can see one of the … Continue reading →

On the South Shore

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This entry is part 31 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

The whole rim of Mare Nectaris is populated with wonderful features. Here we have the south side with the big scarp Rupes Altai below and left of center stretching from the beautiful crater Piccolomini (90km dia) at bottom going all they way up past the large Catarina (104km) some 495km. You can just barely see another pressure ridge, concentric to Mare Nectaris, running from Catharina down south of the large “U” shaped crater above center, Fracastorius (128km). Unfortunately the nice east-west rima that bisects this crater is just beyond the resolution of this image. But there are many secondary craters on its floor and a splattering of them in the upper left covering Beaumont (54km) a little brother to Fracastorius. These secondaries are likely the ejecta from the Theophilus impact to the north which must have been a fantastic sight!

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The Ends

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This entry is part 30 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

Normally a more foreshortened feature, at this libration we get a good look into Endymion, the large 125km diameter crater just right of center. As lunar night approaches we see the wonderful shadows crawling across its floor. The two large craters below and to the left (west) are Atlas (90km) and the smaller, younger Hercules (71km) with the satellite crater Hercules G (13km) on its floor. Many observers think these two are much alike but actually they are remarkably different with a smooth flat floor in Hercules and rimae, and roughness on the floor of Atlas. Even the eject is very different in the two with Atlas having a thick ejecta blanket that even covers over a much older crate to the north. Above these two is the teardrop shaped crater Keldysh (34km). Below and to the right of Atlas is a ghost crater seen best at this sun angle, Chevallier (54km), with small satellite crater Chevallier B (13km) contained … Continue reading →

Little Brother

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This entry is part 29 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

Outshone by his big brother Copernicus, seen here in the lower left, the sizeable crater, Eratosthenes (diameter 60km) is nevertheless a very interesting crater with nicely terraced walls, a good central peak cluster and a tight herringbone ejecta blanket surrounding the crater. Seen here Eratosthenes forms a southern anchor to the Montes Apenninus. Between Eratosthenes and Copernicus is an eye catching string of secondary craters from the Copernicus impact event. It takes at least a 3″ telescope to make them out clearly and the right lighting. At the south end of this string is a large ghost crater, Stadius (70km) which stands between Sinus Aestuum to the east (southeast of Eratosthenes) and Mare Insularum below Copernicus to the southwest. On the opposite side of Eratosthenes from Stadius is another ghost crater sitting out in Mare Imbrium. This is Wallace (27km) with a more complete rim on the west side than the east. Notice the twin satellite craters below it Eratosthenes … Continue reading →

No safe distancing!

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This entry is part 27 of 39 in the series Lunarcy

This is a crowded highland region on the moon east of Tycho and Clavius. The large crater on the terminator with the great dramatic shadows on is floor is Maginus (168km diameter) with its tiny offset central peaks. Below center is a crater with a pronounced central peak, Lilus (63km) and to the lower right of it is Jacobi (70km) with a bunch of secondary craters on its floor. In the upper right corner of this image is half of the large crater Maurolycus (117km). Notice the crater to the left, Faraday (71km). On the lower left crater wall is a particularly polygonal crater Faraday C (30km) with a curious floor infilled with ejecta from another nearby impact. The concentric depression on the left (west) side of this crater consists of at least 3 merged craters again overlain by ejecta looking like thumbprints in the lunar surface. Moving south from Maurolycus is the crater Barocius (85km) with a curious upper … Continue reading →