Mare Orientale is a formation lying at 95° W longitude and as a result is normally not visible to observers from Earth. However, due to libration, one may catch a glimpse of this 300-km circular formation during three-day windows of opportunity late each year. As indicated by Lunar Orbiter satellite photos, this mare is characterized by a set of impact rings on the periphery whose presence is noted in the image below following careful inspection. For an interesting discussion on the controversy and/or confusion as to who was the first ground-based observer to discover this mare, click here.
|
Body: Moon Mass: 0.0123 x Earth Mean Eq Diameter: 0.2719 x Earth Distance: 391,278 km Sidereal Rev: 27d 07h 43m 11s Age: 24d 08h 05m Phase: 116.5° Diameter: 30.95' Magnitude: -9.0 Rukl: 50 |
|
Date: Sep 21, 2003 06:36:39 UT+3 Location: Athens, Greece Equipment: Celestron 14" SCT Losmandy G-11 GEM Nikon Coolpix 995 ScopeTronix STWA14 Adapter Exposures: 1 x 1/15 sec @ f5.1 ISO 200 JPG RGB Fine image format 2048x1536 image size Autodark subtraction Software: Photoshop V6 Processing: Unsharp Masking Grayscale Levels Brightness/Contrast Resampling (30%) JPG Compression |