image by <a xhref="mailto:mwirths@superaje.com">Mike Wirths</a>
I am ready to cancel future lunar orbiters - we don’t need them. With the continuing stream of ever better images by the current image masters we are seeing the Moon better than ever before. Mike’s image of the Tycho to Clavius region covers familiar ground, but with exceptional clarity. At the top right there is a wormy texture due to the surface being carpeted with ejecta and squiggly secondaries from Tycho. The floor of Tycho is reminiscent of that of Copernicus - mostly covered by rubbly debris with a sector of smooth impact melt. Near the edge of the image to the lower right of Tycho is a significant rounded hill I’ve never noticed before. This looks like the sort of isolated massif that often marks an otherwise lost impact basin rim, but I don’t know what basin it might belong to. Scrolling down to the right of magnificent Clavius the low light and good resolution reveal a series of parallel lineations. Gary Seronik (of S&T) wonders if these are Orientale Sculpture - radial deposits and maybe fractures associated with the formation of the Orientale basin. That is a good possibility. Keep looking at this image and you will find other features to challenge your interpretive genius.
I will be at JPL this weekend for the next Cassini radar flyby of Titan - the next LPOD will hopefully be for Tuesday.
Technical Details:
18 July, 2006. 18″ Starmaster + camera Lumenera Infinity 2-2 + 2.5X Powermate barlow + red filter; 132/550 stacked frames using Registax 3.
Related Links:
Rükl charts 64 & 72
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