The Libration Zones

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

This is the far south-west area of the Moon imaged at a time of favorable libration for that area (Latitude -4° 34', Longitude -6° 4').  In the mouseover I have indicated the names of the more prominent craters in this area. It is a mosaic of seven sections processed in Registax, each having its histogram stretched appropriately to obtain images of similar dynamic range (close to 5 to 200). This was necessary as there was some very thin high cloud present so that a constant exposure did not produce ideally similar pictures.  Finally the mosaic was assembled in iMerge, using the Autobrighten feature for the same reason. Click on the image to see the full-sized picture with many more craters identified.  Use your Back button to return here. Date and Time 11th May 2022 between 04:48 and 05:03 UT Camera ToUcam 740K with IR-pass filter Telescope LX200 at prime focus Capture ICCapture, exposure 1/618 sec, gain 1010 Processing Registax5. Wavelet 1-2 = 10 Moon: Day: 22.0 Phase: 272.1 Illumination: 51.9% Sub-solar latitude: -1.1 Libration Latitude: -4° 34' Libration Longitude: -6° 4'

Although the libration was quite favorable for this area, the lighting was not.  It was taken on lunar day 22.0 which is very close to third quarter, so the Sun is almost overhead in the libration area to the west.  Consequently shadows, such as they are, are short and the features do not stand out.  Sadly the following mornings were cloudy.

		Home		Back to the Moon