Craters Copernicus & Eratosthenes in colour at 9 days and 19 hours old (Niall MacNeill)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Craters Copernicus & Eratosthenes in colour at 9 days and 19 hours old

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Craters Copernicus & Eratosthenes in colour at 9 days and 19 hours old

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

For a couple of days this last week it was clear at Wattle Flat...that is clear of smoke and dust. I took the opportunity to image in detail one of my favourite parts of the moon, the crater Copernicus (93km in diameter, 3.8km deep) at left with the smaller Eratosthenes (59km in diameter, 3.6km deep) at right. In this colour image the beautiful subtle colours of the lunar surface come through with its grey palette interspersed with hues of green, brown and even blue, whilst Copernicus is in deep shadow and Eratosthenes a little more illuminated by the Sun.

The force of the blast from the impact that created Copernicus can be appreciated from the rays streaming out from around the crater. Closer in the terrain has been peppered by a myriad of small craters as if struck by shrapnel. Many of these scars are elongated away from the crater suggesting the impactors hit the moon at a low angle after the blast. Others are more round in shape and perhaps flew up almost vertically to come down again with a more orthogonal trajectory. As Jurek explained to me, some these craters are volcanic in nature which goes some way to explaining some being lined up as they are.

In that field, just below a line linking the two craters is a circular feature, which is an older crater which was flooded by lava to leave but the barest outline as a reminder that it may have been as grand as Eratosthenes before its inundation with molten rock.

RGB and IR 642nm BP captures of 5 mins per colour channel were used per panel of 4 in total. The NIR and Red images were of similar very high quality with the Green slightly worse and the Blue slightly worse again. After RGB integration I used the NIR image as Luminance to great effect and it brought real sharpness and clarity to the image.

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Craters Copernicus & Eratosthenes in colour at 9 days and 19 hours old

Craters Copernicus & Eratosthenes in colour at 9 days and 19 hours old

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Craters Copernicus & Eratosthenes in colour at 9 days and 19 hours old

Craters Copernicus & Eratosthenes in colour at 9 days and 19 hours old

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