Gassendi Home

Move your mouse over the picture to see the names of the various craters.

Gassendi is a large crater (114 Km in diameter) situated on the northern shores of the Mare Humorum.  There are several central mountains, the highest being 1200 metres high.  Other major craters in the picture are Mersenius (87 Km in diameter and 2300 metres deep) and Cavendish (58 Km in diameter and 2300 metres deep).
The scale markers are 100 Km north and east.
The picture was taken with a ToUcam attached to my LX200 on 25th October 2004 at 22:42 UT, when the Moon was 12.6 days old.

Lunar Phase: 26.1°
Colongitude: 58.5°
Date and Time: 25th October 2004 at 22:42 UT
Camera: ToUcam 740K
Telescope: LX200 at prime focus (FL 2500 mm)
Capture: K3CCDTools. High gamma, 1/500", 12% gain, 307 frames
Processing: Registax. 157 frames stacked. Wavelet 1,2 = 10


 The gamma curve. In this picture, taken at a very similar lunation, I have used a sigmoid gamma curve to try to emphasise the rugged nature of the floor of Gassendi.  Close-up pictures taken from orbit, indicate that the wall of Gassendi is intact across its southern side suggesting that the crater could not have been flooded with lava from Mare Humorum.  The crater is evidently younger than the Humorum basin, so presumably was tilted to the south at formation.  This may explain why the mare lavas reach nearly to the top of the ring wall on the outside, but not on the inside.  It may well be that lava welled up through cracks in the floor caused by movement of Humorum as it filled with lava, but that doesn't account for its generally rugged appearance.  Better pictures than mine show that there are many rilles crossing the floor, which accounts for some of the unevenness.  My own feeling is that the crater floor is covered with ejecta from elsewhere (maybe the Orientale crater).
The scale markers are 100 Km north and west.
The picture was taken with a ToUcam attached to my LX200 on 12th November 2005 at 22:46 UT, when the Moon was 11.5 days old.

Lunar Phase: 39.2°
Colongitude: 47.5°
Date and Time: 12th November 2005 22:46 UT
Camera: ToUcam 740K
Telescope: LX200 at prime focus (FL 2500 mm)
Capture: K3CCDTools. Low gamma, 1/33", 9% gain, 452 frames
Processing: Registax. 103 frames stacked. Wavelets 1 = 10, 2 = 5, gamma sigmoid
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