High resolution lunar images – November 4th, 2015

The excellent seeing nights of September are far gone now, but November still had its good moments, despite the cold, foggy mornings. This were the conditions on the morning of November 4th, with the Moon high in the sky, a lot of fog, and dew on the secondary mirror of the scope. And unfortunately only a few very good seeing moments. Despite this, the views at the eyepiece of the 14 inch scope were fantastic.

The equipment for the following shots: 355 mm F/5 homemade Newtonian (SkyWatcher optics) at F/20, ASI 120MM-S camera with a Baader Red filter. Seeing (mostly) 6-7/10.

The first shot presents two of my favorite large craters, under a superb illumination: Alphonsus and Ptolemaeus:

The above image was extracted from a large mosaic that also shows Rupes Recta, Rima Birt and the now well-known smaller rille perpendicular to the Straight Wall:

A view showing crater Tycho (upper left) with Pitatus (lower centrer) and the concentric crater Hesiodus A (right of Pitatus):

The South Pole was as always a superb sight with a lot of shadow-filled craters and mountains. The largest shadow-filled crater in the image is Moretus:

Copernicus and Eratosthenes were well placed for a group photo. Note the secondary crater chains between the two. What a show must have been at the moment they were formed…

One of the larger impact craters, with half the rim covered by lava, and a future landing place for lunar-probes: Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows).

The above image is part of a larger mosaic presented below.

This view also includes the well-known crater Plato. Note the smaller craters on Plato’s floor, and also the multitude of rilles all around the image.

At the end, just for fun, I’ve made a comparison image of Sinus Iridum at the same scale with the island of Cyprus (the island is in white, and tilted to give the correct perspective). Sinus Iridum is quite a large impact crater!