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Apollo 15 was the fourth manned landing on the Moon. The lunar module landed at
22:16:29 UT on 30th July 1971 close to Hadley Rille, at lunar coordinates 26.13°N 3.63°E. Full details of the mission can be found at the web site of the
Lunar and Planetary Institute
Hadley Rille is one of the sinuous rilles that are a common feature of the lunar surface and whose
nature has been in some doubt. Landing astronauts nearby gave the opportunity to examine this
interesting feature at close hand. The landing site is also close to the Apennine mountains and
the approach was from the east, that is over the mountains. This was possible after the extreme
precision of the previous two lunar landings had shown that it would be safe to do so.
This was the first mission to include the Lunar Roving Vehicle, which gave the astronauts much greater
range and endurance. The sides of the rille were too steep for the astronauts to enter
the rille safely so they were unable to get samples from the bottom.
This picture was taken in infra-red light on 31st August 2010 at 04:39 UT, when the Moon was 20.6 days old. It was exposed and processed to bring out the Hadley Rille so the brightly-lit mountain tops are over-exposed. The scale markers are approximately 50 Km north and west and apply at Mons Hadley Delta.
Lunar Phase: 288.9°
Colongitude: 167.8°
Date and Time: 31 August 2010 04:39 UT.
Camera: DMK 21AF04 with IR-pass filter.
Telescope: LX200 at prime focus.
Capture: ICCapture. 3039 frames, 1/108 sec, gain 716.
Processing: Registax. 119 frames stacked. Wavelet 1-2 = 10.
PhotoImpact. Magnified X2.
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