Contains:  Solar system body or event
Theophilus Crater, Bruce Rohrlach

Theophilus Crater

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
Theophilus Crater, Bruce Rohrlach

Theophilus Crater

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

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Description

I have wanted to image Theophilus and its central peaks for quite a while now, but the early-morning hours (2-4am!) when the terminator is sweeping across this part of the lunar surface and coinciding with when the moon is sufficiently high in the sky, has meant I have delayed imaging this region for too long. I have imaged a lot of the western hemisphere but not much from the eastern hemisphere. So with the 50th anniversary last night of the Apollo 11 landing, I committed to an early morning session to capture a new array of features which included Theophilus, Posidonius, Rupes Altai, Plinius, Lacus Mortis, Aristoteles and Eudoxus, the Abulfeda Catenae and the Apollo 11 landing site. The first image below is looking at Theophilus crater from almost directly overhead on a night of quite good seeing. Theophilus is a 100-km-wide crater about 3.2 km deep formed by a lunar impact during the Eratosthenian Period (3.2 – 1.1 billion years ago). The triple-peaked central mountain formed by instantaneous rebound of the deep lunar crust upon impact, and stands 2 kilometres above the crater floor. Theophilus impinges on the older crater Cyrillus to the southwest (left in image). The smaller crater to the bottom right is Mädler. Skywatcher 8 inch/f5 Newtonian, ASI224mc, 5x Televue Powermate, stack of 2000 from 11999 frames.

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Theophilus Crater, Bruce Rohrlach