Crater Aristarchus - the brightest crater on the Moon (Niall MacNeill)

Crater Aristarchus - the brightest crater on the Moon

It has been a while since I did some lunar photography.

I went back to my lunar/ planetary set up on the C14 EdgeHD last night. I used the Player One Saturn-M SQR camera, with the TeleVue 2x barlow lens to give optimal sampling and the best possible resolution, probably down to 500m on the Moon. It was very high in the sky, nearly full (96% illuminated) and waxing gibbous with an age of 13d 11h. The FOV is 6'x 4' and the image is North up in colour. The seeing was very good.

The main crater featured is Aristarchus, which is the brightest crater on the Moon's surface, at least, of those visible from the Earth. Its brightness is due to its young age of 450 million years. It is 40kms in diameter and 2.7kms deep. Aristarchus is just to the east of the crater Herodotus, which is much older and has clearly been flooded by lava, and the Vallis Schröteri, and south of a system of narrow sinuous rilles named Rimae Aristarchus. The other flooded crater in the image to the right of Aristarchus is crater Prinz, where only 2/3rds of the crater wall is visible, with the rest having been submerged by lava. To the right of Crater Prinze are the Montes Harbinger and a series of rills called Rimae Prinz.

Schröter’s Valley begins 25km north of Herodotus and gives the impression of a dry river bed. Starting at a crater 6km in diameter, the valley widens to almost 10km, forming a shape some observers have nicknamed ‘The Cobra’s Head’. From this it gradually narrows to a width of 55m, finally terminating in a 1km-high bank on the edge of an uplifted area.

The whole scene is replete with Rimae and the rays of the crater are readily seen against the relatively dark background of the Oceanus Procellarum.

I was very careful with the sharpening. This is the optimal amount before artefacts start to appear particularly the dark rings around the crater rims. I wanted to maintain the natural look as far as possible, and such rings are not real.

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