On friday 22 April Jupiter and the moon rose above our house around 20.00 hours UT. The seeing was good so I got the telescope out to observe the Moon. I was amazed by the colour of the Aristarchus plateau. I never noticed this before. It looked a dark grey diamond-shaped area with a hint of green.  The contrast with its surroundings was clearly visible, even at a low magnification. I include two images just to give you an idea.

The first image is the Moon and Jupiter, the second the Aristarchus area. On the first image, the Moon is over-exposed, to capture Jupiter as well. The image of the Aristarchus area is shot in black and white. I wasn’t able to capture the colour difference, but you see that the plateau is a different from its surroundings. On the plateau (Rukl 18) the Schroter Valley is clearly visible. Near the terminator you can see the remains of three large walled plains, Eddington, Russel and Struve (Rukl 17)