List of south features of the Moon-Southern lunar Hemisphere

Southern hemisphere of the Moon is in rough terrain, heavily cratered and with mountainous areas.
At the poles, the sun is always at small angles, so this is creating a unique environment, but also some difficulties in interpreting the geological region.
The southern hemisphere of the Moon craters are very different in size, appearance and how they were formed by impacts in the past.
Personally, the most interesting craters on south, I find Tycho, a crater with rays showing a very high albedo, rays that are left behind from the initial impact, wich can be seen from Earth with the naked eye or binoculars.
Another great crater is Clavius​​, a large crater with other small craters lying inside it in a decreasing order to form a spiral.
Shiller is another crater, interesting to me because of its elongated shape similar to a caterpillar.
 On the southern hemisphere of the Moon seen from Earth, there is only a sea, Mare Nubium that penetrate down to the crater Pitatus.

There are not mountains on the Moon's southern hemisphere. Maybe were probably destroyed by countless impacts were.

Most notable craters of the Moon southern hemisphere, in alphabetical order, are:

Aliacensis
Apianus
Asclepi
Baco
Ball
Barocius
Biela
Blanchinus
Boguslawsky
Bosching
Boussingault
Brown
Buch
Casatus
Cichus
Clairaut
Clavius
Curtius
Cuvier
Cysatus
Deluc
Demonax
Deslandres
Fabricius
Faraday
Fernelius
Frisius
Gauricus
Gemma
Gruemberger
Hagecius
Heinsius
Hell
Helmholtz
Heraclitus
Hommel
Jacobi
Janssen
Kaiser
Kinau
Klaproth
Lexell
Licetus
Lilius
Longomontanus
Maginus
Manzinus
Maurolycus
Metius
Miller
Montanari
Moretus
Mutus
Neander
Nearch
Neumayer
Newton
Nonius
Orontius
Pentland
Picret
Pitatus
Pitiscus
Playfair
Poisson
Pontanus
Pontecoulant
Proctor
Rabbi Levi
Rheita
Riccius
Rosenberger
Sasserides
Saussure
Sempilius
Short
Scheiner
Schiller
Schomberger
Scott
Steinheil
Stofler
Tannerus
Tycho
Vlaq
Watt
Weiss
Werner
Wilhelm
Wurzelbauer
Zach


Seas:
Mare Nubium

Space missions on the south side of the Moon:
Ranger 9 was launched on March 24, 1965 by United States of America and was intentionally crashed on the lunar surface, on crater Alphonsus.
Ranger 9 was designed to achieve an impact trajectory and to transmit pictures of the lunar surface in high-resolution during the flight until the impact.
  Ranger 9 successfully transmitted 5814 images with a resolution of up to 1.5 m.

LCROSS United States launched the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) which was deliberately crashed into the Moon's south pole on crater Cabeus on October 9, 2009
The mission was designed to search for water ice on the lunar surface and examining the resulting cloud, caused by impact. The mission ended with the discovery of significant amounts of water.

Moon Impact Probe was launched by India, and it was deliberately crashed on 14 November 2008 at the lunar south pole.
 It had 35 kg, and was released from Chandrayaan-1 Lunar Orbiter. It was equipped with a video camera, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer.

Video: Victor Lupu
Optics: CelestronC8 "-Newtonian telescope, plossl20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Device: SonyCX105 at 7x optical zoom
Total Magnification: 700x
Filter: no
Date: 16/08/2011
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing and editing: Sony Vegas 10

To see the photographic map of the south area of the Moon, view: Photographic map of the Moon: South Zone. Lunar Atlas.

For those who like my astro pictures or my articles, it woul be great if you could pay attention on advertising that appear in the blog by a click and maybe one day I could buy a better telescope.

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Walther Purbach Aliacensis and Werner lunar craters

Photographer: Victor Lupu
Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope, plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Device: Sony CX105
Filter: No
Date: 11/05/2011
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: Sony Vegas 10 captures video

Walther, Purbach ,Regiomontanus , Aliacensis and Werner are neighboring craters, but also with Deslandres and Blanchinus. The area they are in is full of huge craters. A tourist would certainly not be bored when he gets there .At least for climbing the "mountains" that separate craters between them.

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Moon craters in light-Tycho's rays

Photographer: Victor Lupu
Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope, plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Device: Sony CX105
Filter: No
Date: 13/04/2011
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: Sony Vegas 10 captures video
In this video captures of the Moon are craters of the south in light.It is harder to shoot craters full of light because in these conditions it is more difficult for the camera to distinguish what it sees, and so the focus becomes ticklish.It is easier for a video camera to focus the craters that are in shadow, or have at least some shade because the sensor is looking to catch contrasts of black and white  to focalize.I chose caprures especially where the focus was best.What seems most successful is the ray system which starts from the crater Tycho, the white visible "swords"  in some photos, which are lighter and crosses over the craters.
Large craters in these pictures are: Walther, Purbach and Regiomontanus, Blanchinus , Werner and Aliacensis, Stofler, Fernelius (65 km) and Orontius.
You can see the video of these captures here: Video-Walther and Purbach-craters in light astronomy telescope images .

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Playfair and Krusenstern craters

Photographer: Victor Lupu
Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope, plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Device: Sony CX105
Filter: No
Date: 10/02/2011
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: 10 Sony Vegas, video captures
Craters Apianus G Aliacensis and Werner, and Blanchinus, are the main craters of these photos, by size, located in south-central part of the Moon.
          Playfair (48 km), is a lunar crater located in the rugged highlands of the Moon's south side. It lies along the eastern edge of the satellite crater Apianus G, a formation that is almost twice the diameter of Apianus itself. Playfair is north of Apianus , and south-west of the pair of craters Abenezra-Azophi . Playfair is oval in shape, slightly higher along the east-west rim. The edge is eroded, and small craters are along its south and west. The interior is almost with no features, only a pair of small craters are just east of the midpoint.
The name comes from John Playfair (10.3.1748-20.7.1819), a scottish scientist and mathematician , professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University.

          Krusenstern (47 km), is attached to the southeast edge of Apianus G -in photos is attached to the east of Apianus G, and is along and north-east of the larger crater Werner. Krusenstern is a large circular crater and its walls reach a height of 1,600 meters. The interior is almost with no features, marked only by a few small craters. It dates from pre-nectarian era, 4.55 - 3.92 billion years ago.
It has the name of Adam Johann Ritter von Krusenstern (November 19, 1770 - August 24, 1846) which was a german explorer and admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy, who led the first circumnavigation of Earth.

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Ptolemaeus Alphonsus and Alpetragius craters

Photographer: Victor Lupu
Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian reflector telescope, plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Device: Sony HDR CX105
Filter: No
Date: 10/02/2011
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: video capture

         Ptolemaeus (153 km.). Ptolemaeus crater features are highlighted when the sun is at low angles during the first quarter and last. When is Full Moon, crater contour become more difficult to discern.
The crater has a rim with low height, with an irregular polygon, although it generally is circular. The largest of the peaks along the edge, called Ptolemaeus Gamma (γ), has an altitude of 2.9 km and is located in north-west along the border. Ptolemaeus has no central peak.There are several small craters on its floor, the most noted being Ammonius on north-east

 Crater name comes from Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), (90-168 AD).
Ptolemaeus was a Roman citizen from Egypt who wrote in greek.He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and a poet and lived in Egypt under Roman rule.It is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais in Thebaid Hermiou. He died in Alexandria around 168 e.n.

        Alphonsus (108 km) is an ancient impact crater on the Moon that dates from the immediate post-Nectarian era. It is located on the mountainous eastern end of Mare Nubium, and overlaps slightly with Ptolemaeus crater to the north. The exterior walls are slightly distorted and have a shape somewhat hexagonal. To the northwest is Alpetragius (40 km), smaller.

Central, shows a sharp peak called Alphonsus Alpha (α). This pyramid-shaped ridge rises to a height of 1.5 km above the inner surface. It is not of volcanic origin, but rather is made ​​of anorthosites. 

         Alpetragius (40 km). The most notable feature of this crater is that it shows a large central peak, forming a rounded growth occupying almost the entire floor of the crater diameter that rises to a height of 2.0 km. There is evidence that this peak was enhanced by volcanic eruptions.

Other craters in this photo are: Albategnius, Arzachel, Thebit, Purbach, Regiomontanus, La Caille, Blanchinus, Aliacensis, Apianus Werner, Airy, Klein, Doati and Davy.

          Airy (37 km),it is named in honor of the british astronomer George Biddell Airy. the crater is the southern most member of a crater chain consisting of Vogel (27 km), Argelander (34 km) and Airy. A little further south is Donati (36 km).
Airy has an edge worn and somewhat polygonal, broken the heads of north and south. It has an irregular floor and a central peak.
 The name of the crater is ​​and the honor of Sir George Biddell Airy (27.07.1801-02.01.1892), who was an English astronomer and mathematician.

        Vogel (27 km). There is both a lunar crater, and a martian crater with the same name. On the Moon, is a small lunar crater located south-east of Albategnius.
Both north and south ends of Vogel's are interrupted by smaller craters. Vogel B is superimposed along the northern edge of smaller craters, forming an interconnected group of craters Vogel being the biggest.
The name comes from the Hermann Carl Vogel (03.04.1841-13.08.1907) who was a German astronomer from Leipzig, Saxon kingdom.

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