Move your mouse over the picture to see the names of the various craters.
Mare Australe is a rather vague collection of dark spots in the south-eastern libration zone. Pictures taken from the Clemantine spacecraft show the area to be covered with dar-floored craters and to have no distinct boundaries. As far as this picture is concerned, the mare extends from Oken in the north to Hanno in the south and from Brisbane E and Peirescius D in the west to the eastern limb. Also shown in this picture is the southern end of the Rheita Valley, the northern part of which is shown in my pictures of Rheita and Metius.
The scale markers are approximately 100 Km north and west.
The picture was taken with a ToUcam attached to my LX200 on 10th December 2005 at 17:17 UT,
when the Moon was 9.8 days old.
Date and Time: 10th December 2005 at 17:17 UT
Camera: ToUcam 740K
Telescope: LX200 at prime focus with IR-pass filter
Capture: K3CCDTools. Low gamma, 1/33", 10% gain, 312 frames
Processing: Registax. 136 frames stacked. Wavelets 1 = 10, 2 = 5, histogram 30-255
This picture of the Mare Australe region was taken under conditions of exceptional libration; -6° 14' in longitude and 4° 49' in latitude, which gives rise to almost 8° in a north-easterly direction. I exposed this picture to bring out the dark patches in this area, and this, together with the lighting, means the craters are not well displayed unless they have dark interiors. After considerable effort and help from a member of the Lunar-observing Yahoo Group, I think I have identified correctly all the labelled craters despite their indistinct appearance. However I still have some doubts about the craters in the libration zone, so these are labelled with dotted arrows.
The scale markers are approximately 100 Km north and west.
The picture is a combination of two taken with a ToUcam attached to my LX200 on 9th February 2006 at 21:20 UT, when the Moon was 11.7 days old.
Date and Time: 9th February 2006 21:20 UT
Camera: ToUcam 740K
Telescope: LX200 at prime focus
Capture: K3CCDTools. Low gamma, 1/500", 32% gain, 315 and 340 frames
Processing: Registax. 85 and 79 frames stacked. Wavelet 1 = 10, unsharp mask 50,3 (in PhotoImpact) both after assembly of the mosaic. Home Back to SE Quadrant