The Moon

All photos copyright 2003 Hap Griffin
All photos are as seen through a telescope with South up and East/West reversed.

The crater Manzius (on the left) near the lunar south pole.  Manzius is nearly perfectly circular and is 59 miles in diameter with walls reaching an altitude of 10,600 feet.  The mountainous polar terrain can be seen on the horizon.

   

Lunar sunset in the crater Vlacq (the dark one on the left) near the moon's eastern limb.  Vlacq is 54 miles in diameter and has walls 9100 feet high.  The crater at lower center is Pitiscus and above it are two craters, Hommel and Asclepi.  These three craters first caught my eye in that they remind me of the character Mr. Bill on the old Saturday Night Lives shows! 


The crater Theophilus, 61 miles in diameter, with a very interesting complex central peak.  Theophilus is a newer formation than the eroded crater Cyrillus to its immediate upper right.  The well formed crater with a double central peak to its left is Madler with a diameter of 17 miles.  The eroded old crater with a large central peak to the lower right is Kant (19 miles in diameter).  Note the relatively smooth lava flows forming Mare Nectaris to the left with many small craterlets.  The Ranger 8 lunar probe crashed (on purpose) in an area just north of this photograph in 1965. 

 

Date/Location:    August 15/16, 2003     Griffin/Hunter Observatory    Bethune, SC
Instrument:    Meade 10" LX-200 with Logitec QuickCam Pro 4000
Focal Ratio:   f6.3 with additional 2X Barlow (approximately f12.6)
Guiding:    None
Conditions:    Summer haze
Weather:    70 F, Still wind
Film:    n/a
Exposure: Approx. 10 frames at 1/25 second each
Filters:    None
Processing:    Registered, stacked and wavelet processed in Registax, finished in Photoshop 6

Back