November 18 was a perfect night for HR lunar images: a bit of fog near the ground, no wind, only -5 degrees Celsius and low jet stream. These factors allowed for some near-perfect seeing conditions, with a value of 7/10 most of the time, and 8-9/10 occasionally. The last time I had such conditions was almost a year ago.
First, one shot with craters Theophilus and Cyrillus being the main subjects. Craters as small as 450-500 meters can be discerned.
Lacus Mortis with crater Burg at the center, in slightly less perfect conditions:
The very interesting half-of-a-crater Fracastorius with its inner rimae; details of 500 meters and below are observable:
Rima Cauchy and Rupes Cauchy in excellent seeing. Details of 400-450 meters are discernible:
Giant crater Janseen with its inner rimae system, in low-angle illumination and very good to superb seeing conditions.
Crater Posidonius and the near-by areas with lost of rilles. This shot was acquired in excellent conditions, and crater of 400 meters can be detected:
The lunar South Pole area, under good seeing conditions (but only 6-7/10). Craters Clavius and Moretus and the southern mountains offer a very nice perspective of the lunar terrain:
Craters Capella and Gutenberg. Capella is the strange flower-looking crater left of center, while Gutenberg is the large lava-filled crater right of center. Note the large number of rilles crossing the frame. Craters of around 550-600 meters are present in the image.
From Atlas and Hercules to Posidonius:
Reprocessed version of Theophilus image:
Hercules and Atlas craters, normal and perspective-corrected (aerial) view:
A reprocessing of the Posidonius image:
Copernicus crater under high illumination:
And Copernicus in RGB with data for color from October 2015. Note the many hues inside the crater floor and rim:
Crater Janssen on the terminator; a rather hard to image target at this illumination due to the strong contrast of some crater rims:
And a Posidonius comparison between the Lunar Orbiter 4 image, back in 1967, and my own from a few days ago. “Only” 50 years were necessary for amateurs back on Earth to get close to the spacecraft resolution from half a century ago. I might still need a few more years to actually get to the same resolution (the LO4 image shows craters of around 260-280 meters), but craters of 400 meters are detectable in my image. My shot is perspective-corrected to better compare the two views; this type of processing slightly distorts my image, but the smallest details are still there.