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Sea of Dryness
6.06.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
The classical names for the lunar dark areas were all nautical, but all were dreadful misnomers since the Moon has always lacked seas and oceans. So today, we will examine the Sea of Dryness rather than Mare Humorum, the Sea of Moisture.
Copernicus
5.06.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
Copernicus is the most important crater on the Moon. How can I call out any one as "most important," you ask? Let me modify the first sentence and you will probably agree: Copernicus is the most important crater on the Moon because of what it has taught us. Here are three lessons.
Hippalus Arcs
4.06.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
Impact basins are characterized by a family of features such as multiple rims, concentric fractures and ridges, a central depression, radial markings, and extensive ejecta deposits. This list results not from a single perfect basin, but from recognizing consistent patterns in all the Moon's basins.
Lunar Ring
3.06.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
Some people think they are rare, but a ring around the Moon - a Moon halo - is not especially. However, they are beautiful and uncommon enough that its fun to get other folks to come out of the house to see them.
Gassendi
2.06.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
The advent of webcams and image compositing and enhancing software has given amateur astronomers with modest size instruments the ability to acquire lunar images that equal or surpass the very best professional images. Now amateurs are pushing up against the resolution of space craft imaging.
Posidonius: Rilles and Uplift
1.06.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
Posidonius is a beacon of interest along the otherwise bland north-eastern shore of Serenitatis. The large (95 km wide, 2.3 km max depth crater may have originally looked like Copernicus with broad terraced walls and a scattering of peaks centered on a deep, flat floor. But thats not how it looks now!
Ten Day Old Moon
31.05.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
I am constantly impressed that CCD and webcam technology is making serious astro-imagers of us all. Here is a quite nice mosaic of two images that form a publication quality view of the 10 day old Moon. This is the way the Moon looks in the eyepiece.
A Weird Moon
30.05.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
Perhaps the Moon, in racing to circle the Earth in just 27 days, has torqued itself into a new shape. Or maybe the scanning platforms of the GOES weather satellites cause the elliptical and tilted shape.
Moonsliver over Lyman Hill
29.05.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
This image shows a sliver of a moon (less than 48 hours after new Moon) over Lyman Hill, Skagit County, Washington State. There is no scientific value to this view, but the Moon plays a huge role, I speculate, in providing a sense of beauty to the night sky everywhere, even in sky-bright cities.
Whence the Bessel Ray?
28.05.2004 | Lunnoe foto dnya
"The crowns of rays spread out over the face of the full moon, and seem to mock at all explanation." I like this quote from the early 20th century German observer, Phillip Fauth because there is still some truth to it.