Category: Lunar scraps
Last week I shot some images of the Tycho crater rays. You can see the ring of dark material around the bright crater-rim very clearly. The bright crater rays seem to start from this ring of dark material. The craters that are visible near the southern limb will be discussed in one of the next weblog entries. In the meantime, enjoy the view!
In the January’s Sky and Telescope (2005) I read an article about rendering an image of the Moon into a 3D image using Photoshop. Here’s the first results I got using this technique. The images below show just a small part of the original images. The image was shot with the Nikon Coolpix 4500. Mare Crisium looks round on this image, and near the lunar limb you can see Mare Marginis and Mare Smythii as small elongated patches of dark mare material.
After processing the image it looks like this:
Mare Crisium is not round but oval. Mare Marginis and Mare Smythii can be seen much better than on the unprocessed image. Also take notice of how different the two Maria beneath Crisium, Mare Spumans and Mare Undarum look. If you compare all the Maria on the processed image with the images in the Clementine Atlas of the Moon, you will see that the processed image gives very accurate views of the different features.
In the near future I hope to publish more of these rendered images on my website in the Solar System section. This is indeed another way to look at our moon!
This image was shot when the Moon was between 3 and 4 days old. Mare Crisium is lit completely, as are the surrounding mountains. To the South of Mare Crisium you can see a patch of darker material, Mare Undanum. To the east a part of Mare Marginis is visible. North of Mare Crisium lies the big crater Cleomedes with four smaller craters and a small peak on its floor.
This is a more detailed image of the Mare Nectaris region. On the western edge of Mare Nectaris you can see three craters lying in a crooked row, Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina. West-southwest of Catharine you can see the brightly lit Altai Scarp rim with a total length of 480 Km. The �Rupes Altai� end at the crater Piccolomini in the south. On the southern rim of Mare Nectaris lies Fracastorius.
Here’s another image from my last lunar observing session (Sunday 16 January). You can clearly see the three big craters Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina on the southern half of the Moon. Through the telescope, Rupes Altai was the most prominent feature with its brightly lit rim. Rupes Altai marks the southwestern rim of the Nectaris Basin. As I promised earlier this week, a more detailed report will follow in the Solar System section.
Last night, I observed the Moon for a few hours. A detailed observing report will follow later in the Solar System section. After I packed up it was getting cloudy. The thin layer of clouds racing in front of the Moon gave the whole scene an eery look.
Last night I shot some images of a 10-day-old-moon. Here are the first results. A detailed report with more images will be published in the Solar System section on my website. All images where shot with the TAL 100RS (4-inch refractor), a 25mm Vixen Lanthanum eyepiece, the Nikon Coolpix 4500 and three Baader filters: IR/UV filter, Contrast Booster and Fringe Killer.
Overview of a 10-day-old Moon
Southern part of the Moon with Schiller (large elongated crater near the terminator)
Mare Humorum with the large crater Gassendi to the North
Western part of Mare Frigoris with the big crater J. Herschel to the north and Sinus Iridum and Plato to the south
On the evening of October 30 there was a lot of fog and high clouds in the air, but from 21.00 hrs UT till 22.30 hrs UT I managed to take a quick look at the Moon. The Moon was 16 days old and the terminator lay over the centre of Mare Crisium. I only shot
