Astrophotography by Anthony Ayiomamitis

Lunar Image Gallery - Sunrise/Sunset Light Rays

Although the moon has been observed by amateurs and professionals for many centuries, a phenomenon which is considered extremely rare is that of a lunar ray. More specifically, when the rising or setting sun is at a very low angle relative to a lunar feature such as a crater, even a couple of degrees, sunlight may pierce through one of the clefts in the crater's wall and project a ray across the crater floor. Although observational reports of such rays date back to the mid-1800's, there exist but a few such reports and even fewer images. This project is something I started to pursue during the spring of 2003 after reading the excellent article by Robert Robinson in the Reflector (Dec/2002, pg 15). To date, reports indicate that these rays may be observed for only a handful of craters and only during a two- to three-hour window.


Image Details
Lunar Crater Curtius
Imaging Details
Crater:
Curtius

Quadrant:
SE

Lunar Coord:
67.2° S, 4.4° E

Diameter:
95.0 km

Height:
0 km

Rukl:
73

Lunation:
08d 01h 51m

Date:
Jun 07, 2003
21:15 UT+3


Location:
Athens, Greece

Equipment:
Celestron 14" SCT
Losmandy G-11
Nikon Coolpix 995
ScopeTronix STWA14 Adapter


Exposure:
1/30 sec @ f4.0
ISO 400
JPG RGB Fine image format
2048x1536 image size
Autodark subtraction


Software:
Photoshop V6

Processing:
Unsharp Masking
Resampling
JPG Compression

Copyright © 2001-2005, Anthony Ayiomamitis. All rights reserved.