Contains:  Solar system body or event
Quick test image: Aristarchus, Herodotus and Vallis Schroteri, Darren (DMach)

Quick test image: Aristarchus, Herodotus and Vallis Schroteri

Quick test image: Aristarchus, Herodotus and Vallis Schroteri, Darren (DMach)

Quick test image: Aristarchus, Herodotus and Vallis Schroteri

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Description

"The Aristarchus Plateau has fascinated lunar observers since before the space age. Its odd shape and low and high reflectance extremes immediately draws your attention. Superimposed on the plateau is a spectacular channel (or rille), and the very young Aristarchus Crater (regional overview). Aristarchus Crater is the largest impact on the plateau and is one of the highest reflectance (blindingly bright in a telescope) features on the moon. The plateau itself is surrounded by the lava flows of Oceanus Procellarum, and the whole region has a high concentration of sinuous rilles. The largest of these is Vallis Schröteri, which is also the largest sinuous rille on the moon."

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - Aristarchus Platea

"Comparable to the Grand Canyon on Earth, Vallis Schröteri is approximately 160 km long, up to 11 km wide and almost 0.5 km deep."

Moon Minute Monday

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Last night's primary aim was to dial in the collimation of my new C11 - I feel like it's getting pretty close now.

Before packing up and going to bed, I had a quick look at the moon. Aside from being nearly blinded by the brightness (and quickly reaching for my 0.9 ND filter) I might just have uttered some blasphemous profanity ... the detail of Aristarchus, Herodotus and Vallis Schroteri was simply stunning!

Thoughts of sleep vanished, I had to try to capture it. Alas, by the time I had attached my imaging setup, the astronomy "gods" had played their favourite practical joke and spawned broken cloud cover across the sky. (Not the first time I've seen this happen here in the tropics ... it can happen in less than a minute, quite something to see!)

Being stubborn, I persisted and tried to capture a few frames at least through the lighter patches of cloud cover. The image you see here is created using the mere 200 frames which were of acceptable brightness, and scaled down to 33% to hide the noise ... doesn't really do the view through the eyepiece justice, so you'll need to use your imagination a little. ;)

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    Quick test image: Aristarchus, Herodotus and Vallis Schroteri, Darren (DMach)
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Description: A bit of perspective (and orientation) using a mosaic previously captured with my 6SE as a map

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Quick test image: Aristarchus, Herodotus and Vallis Schroteri, Darren (DMach)