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Sinus Aestuum, Apennines and Eratosthenes, Guillermo Gonzalez

Sinus Aestuum, Apennines and Eratosthenes

Sinus Aestuum, Apennines and Eratosthenes, Guillermo Gonzalez

Sinus Aestuum, Apennines and Eratosthenes

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Resulting image of a mosaic of 4 captures (more if clouds hadnt rolled on...). Stacking 1000 best out of 50000 images each of the captures with good seeing (too bad beacuse of the clouds). 

I find it an interesting image/area due to the few craters that can be found but a few of them very remarkable:

Eratosthenes, of course, little- eroded impact crater  with a diameter of about 50 km with a respectable depth below the rim of 3.6 km. "Defining" the Eratosthenian period on the lunar timescale (about 3.2 billion years  ago), so old that it has no "rays" only "wrinkled terraces" ... The view of  Eratosthenes changes greatly throughout a lunation, and at Full Moon it is  becomes very "disguised". 

A couple of ghost craters, the famous Stadius (up left of the image) and also the Wallace crater (more or less at the centre of the image), at either side of Erathostenes / Appennines. Wallace, almost completely flooded by lava, its  floor appears completely smooth and level, without any detectable crater pits. The visible remainder of the crater wall  appears almost square and slopes down below the Mare Imbrium lava on the southeastern side.  Southeast of the crater and lying  parallel to the foot of the Apennines, is an enlongated, nameless mountain ridge with an interesting structure. (From Chu, Alan; Paech, Wolfgang; Weigand, Mario. The Cambridge Photographic Moon Atlas (p. 102). Cambridge University Press).  Stadius which was buried beneath the secondary rocks from  the Copernicus impact (ghost craters can either been completely buried by ejecta from large impacts, or  have been submerged by lava flows)

Of course, there are also the the Apennines in the image!, the greatest range of  mountains on the Moon’s nearside.  Like the "Alps", the Apennines are the  remnants of the rim of the Imbrium Basin  that have not been flooded by lava.  The Apennines stretch for a total length  of about 600 km and individual mountain  peaks reach heights of 5 km. 

Finally, worth highlighting too is the Sinus Aestuum (‘Bay of Billows’) is a mare-like plain,  about 290 km across. It lies  between Eratosthenes and the  western slopes of the Apennines. The surface shows a few  craters and a few ridges similar to mare wrinkle ridges. The  low crater count suggests that  the lava flows in Sinus Aestuum are relatively young.  (From Chu, Alan; Paech, Wolfgang; Weigand, Mario. The Cambridge Photographic Moon Atlas. Cambridge University Press).

I hope that you like this Lunar Scape, as always, I'm open for any question or criticism...

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