Hadley RilleHome

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

These are the Lunar Apennine Mountains, south-east of the crater Archimedes.  I have managed to capture Hadley Rille, visited in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts. The rille is about 1.5 Km wide and about 300 metres deep.  Its proximity to the mountains demanded great precision in navigation of the lunar lander, which approached from the east. I am indebted to Steve B., of the QCUIAG group, for providing this picture comparing my picture with one by NASA showing the rille very clearly.

My picture was taken with a ToUcam attached to my ETX125 with a X2 lens attached on 4th September 2004, when the Moon was 19.9 days old.

Lunar Phase: 297.3°
Colongitude: 147.4°
Date and Time: 4th September 2004 04:19 UT
Camera: ToUcam 740K
Telescope: ETX125 with X2 lens
Capture: K3CCDTools. Low gamma, 1/50", 20% gain, 319 frames
Processing: Registax. 180 frames stacked. Wavelet 1,2 = 10
And here a much better picture of the area taken with my LX200, infra-red light and DMK 21AF04 camera.  Although only a little later in the lunar day, the colongitude shows that the Sun was some 20° lower in the lunar sky so that less light was getting into the rille and it stands out more clearly.  The picture was exposed and processed to bring out the rille, so the tops of the mountains are over-exposed where the Sun was catching them.  An enlargement of the area around the Apollo-15 landing site can be seen on my Apollo-15 page.

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. 
		Home      Back to NW Quadrant