Unscrunching Orientale
Explanation:
Inspired by J-P
Metsavainio's use of Photoshop software to digitally rectify images of the lunar
limb, Alexander Vandenbohede of Belgium applied the technique to one of his images
of the Orientale basin. The composite image above shows Alexander's original telescopic
image and the inset image shows the same image after rectification. The golf ball
is the digital sphere that the image was mapped onto. The result beautifully reveals
the concentric rings of the Orientale basin. This is the same view that led to the
discovery in the early 1960s by Bill Hartmann that Orientale was a multi-ring impact
basin. The outer ring is the Cordillera Mountains and the two inner ones are the
Inner and Outer Rook Mountains - see the Lunar Orbiter view
of the entire structure for a clarification. In 1963, Hartmann and colleagues at
the Lunar & Planetary Lab in Tucson created a Rectified Lunar Atlas - now
amateurs can do the same!
