One of the most impressive sites near the terminator of the 21-day old moon is Mare Imbrium, a large circular formation lying in the northwestern quadrant and whose diameter of 1250 kilometers and area of approximately 830,000 sq meters make it the second largest mare on the moon. It is believed to have been formed between 3.80 and 3.85 billion years ago and is characterized with a very flat and smooth floor with some "wrinkling" on the periphery. Some dominant features of interest include the large crater Plato on the northern rim, the appenine mountain range to the east and the three large craters Aristillus, Autolycus and Archimedes immediately west of the appenines. Careful examination of the floor indicates a differential color pattern between the northern portion and the rest of the area immediately south indicative of differential geological activity.
Body: Moon Mass: 0.0123 x Earth Mean Eq Diameter: 0.2719 x Earth Distance: 403,115 km Sidereal Rev: 27d 07h 43m 11s Age: 21d 10h 35m Phase: 81.2° Diameter: 29.98' Magnitude: -10.4 Rukl: 10 |
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Date: Sep 18, 2003 03:11:18 UT+3 Location: Athens, Greece Equipment: Celestron 14" SCT Losmandy G-11 GEM Nikon Coolpix 995 ScopeTronix STWA14 Adapter Exposures: 1 x 1/8.5 sec @ f2.6 ISO Auto JPG RGB Fine image format 2048x1536 image size Autodark subtraction Software: Photoshop V6 Processing: Despeckle Unsharp Masking Resampling (30%) JPG Compression |