Astronomical telescope images. Lunar craters. Heraclitus and Stofler.

This is a landscape little difficult to see, but at the same time raise the interest for a more detailed investigation of these lunar features.

For example, Stofler crater made me curious when I saw in this light. Its shape is much sharper now that is flooded darkness. This form is actually composed of two craters: Stofler (126 km) and Faraday (70 km). What seems unique from all other moments when I caught this crater is the small crater sitting on the edge of Stofler called Stofler F (18 km). The Shadow that makes Stofler not be circular. These craters are actually Faraday, and left and right Faraday A (21 km) and C (30 km).

 Heraclitus and Licetus (90/75 km) are two stuck together craters, but they are more complex than you think. The shape can confuse you because these are some overlapping craters.
 Heraclitus,  is a complex crater and is located in rugged mountainous areas south of the Moon.The crater is 90 kilometers in diameter and 3.8 kilometers deep. Licetus is combined with Heraclitus and form the southern end.  Cuvier is at west and north is Lilius.

Magnitude: -10.82
Phase: 0.46
Distance: 399.283 km
Illuminated: 45.6% (0% = New, 100% = Full)

Astronomical instrument: Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope,
Eyepiece: Plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Camera: Sony CX130
Filter: no
Date: 30.01.2012
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: FastStone Image Viewer

In the picture below are labeled craters and other lunar features in the region. To better understand this photo, you should note that the label with the name or the letter of larger craters could be found at their center, and on the small craters, you should find them around them, usually above.

The image above is made in 10 February 2011.

Image of 9 February 2011.

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Beautiful south lunar craters. Stofler and Maurolycus.

There are many craters of all sizes in these images, a common feature to the south of the Moon. The largest in size is Stofler (126 km) and Maurolycus (114 km).

The difference between the two as shown in pictures, is that Stofler has a floor with a half moon shape, because on it is superimposed another smaller crater, Faraday (70 km).

Over the entire area is sprayed the ejections from the impact that created the crater Tycho.

The images are very clear, if we consider that these are video captures.

Moon age: 7 days
Stage: 51% (0% = New, 100% = Full)
Distance: 384.488 km


Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope, 20mm Plössl, 2x barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Camera: Sony CX130
Filter: no
Date: 29/04/2012
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: video captures, FastStone Image Viewer

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Moon craters Faraday Stofler and Maurolycus. Pictures by astronomical telescope.

In these images, the largest craters visible to your attention at first glance, are called Stofler right, and Maurolycus. These should be vice versa, but the image is inverted by the telescope.
Stofler (126 km), is an almost circular crater. Eastern edge is "notched" , and so the floor, as a whole, seem to be like a goose foot. An interesting thing you notice is its flooring where there are several shades. These are limited to three dark spots. Other features, are many very small craters on the floor, which seemed to be riddled by bullets. Another feature of Stofler are satellite craters placed on the edge, such as Stofler K (19 km), on the outer edge to the north-west, and Stofler F (18 km), on the inside of the crater, to the south.

Southeast, stuck to Stofler, is Faraday crater (70 km). It is smaller in size, and also has satellite craters on edge, namely Faraday A (21 km) and C (30 km). The latter has some central peaks inside. Faraday is a circular crater, but distorted by A and C mentioned above.

The second big crater in these pictures, is Maurolycus (114 km), a circular crater which looks messy at first glance, because it has many features. It has smaller subsequent craters but also landforms on the floor.

The interior walls are very wide, especially in the northwest and northeast. On the edges exists craters that occurred after the impact that formed Maurolycus. On the north-west is the crater Maurolycus F (25 km), stuck to Maurolycus B (12 km) and on the south, is Maurolycus A (15 km). On the floor are also craters, on the south-central being Maurolycus J, on West M, on center-east L, and on north N.

The interior walls to V-N-E, are terraced, and are more wide inward to the floor than the south wall. North-west, the wall enters the floor and gives the impression of an extended wall of Maurolycus, right in the center. This higher area than the floor is more affected than the rest of the floor by subsequent impacts. In general, the whole floor is "riddled" with very small craters that are seen only with a powerful telescope and a pure atmosphere.

Please remember about the cardinal points that I wrote in the article, which are correct only if you look at the picture upside down, because the images are inverted as seen through the telescope.

Optical Reflector Telescope Celestron C8-Newtonian inch, 20mm Plössl, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Camera: Sony HDR CX105 to 8x optical zoom
Total Magnification: 800x
Filter: No
Date: 20/07/2011
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: Registax

The above image is made ​​in the February 12, 2011.

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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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Faraday Buch and Büsching craters of the south

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 Barocius Maurolycus, Stofler, Licetus. Besides these large craters, are: Faraday (70 km), Buch (54 km) and Büsching (52 km).

Faraday (70 km), is a Moon crater located in the southern highlands of the Moon. It lies on the southeast edge of the crater Stöfler and west is Maurolycus.Yhe rim of Faraday was significantly overlapped by subsequent impacts, especially through a pair superimposed on the south-west and north-west. There is a centrally located low ridge to the south-west to north-east, dividing the crater floor in half. The floor is almost flat in the north-west.
The name comes from Michael Faraday (22/9/1791-25/8/1867) who was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of the time), which contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Buch (52 km), is an old and worn crater. It lies northeast of the crater Maurolycus and Büsching, similar size, is attached to the northern edge . The rim has been eroded by many smaller impacts, so the edge is rounded. The crater floor is relatively flat with no features, with no central peak in the middle. There are only a small crater near the north-west side.
Crater is the name given by Christian Leopold Freiherr von Buch (26.4.1774-4.03.1853) who was a German geologist and paleontologist.

Büsching (52 km), has been eroded over a long period of subsequent impacts, so that the edge was brought down and rounded. Several small craters are located along the edgeThe interior is without a central peak in the middle.
The name comes from the crater Büsching Anton Friedrich (1724-1793) who was a German theologian and geographer.

South

North

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Stöfler Maurolycus and Barocius craters

Stöfler and Maurolycus Registax 80 frames 90% lowest quality.                                                                  -click to enlarge

Stöfler and Maurolycus Registax 32 frames 100% lowest quality.                                                                    -click to enlarge

Stöfler and Maurolycus Registax 14 frames 100% lowest quality.                                                                       -click to enlarge

Stöfler and Maurolycus Registax 78 frames 95% lowest quality.                                                                                                    

Photographer: Victor Lupu
Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian reflector telescope, plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Device: Sony HDR CX105
Filter: No
Date: 09/02/2011
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: Registax

        Stöfler (126 km) is a large lunar crater located in the mountainous areas south of the Moon.It is named after Johannes Stöffler. It is located west of Maurolycus (east on the photo). A distorted crater, Fernelius is attached to the edge of the south and at east are Nasireddin and Miller (not visible in photos). Faraday (70 km), is a damaged crater located at the northwestern edge of Stöfler.
     Stöfler's edge is eroded, but the outline remains relatively intact except for the region where it overlaps with Faraday crater (75 km). The crater located north of Stöfler is Licetus .
    Craters Maurolycus and Barocius (114-82 km) are located west of Stöfler.

          Barocius (82 km.) is an ancient lunar crater that is located in the southern highlands of the Moon. In north it lies Maurolycus. In the north-east of Barocius is Clairaut.
Barocius's edge has been eroded by many subsequent impacts. The most notable, Barocius B, which is located in west side of Barocius, and mingle with the Barocius C. A remnant of a crater, Barocius W , is inside Barocius .
Crater is the name given by Francesco Barozzi (9 August 1537 - 23 November 1604) who was an italian mathematician, astronomer and humanist.

                 Maurolycus (114 km.) , is one of the most prominent craters in the southern highlands of the Moon. To the north is the crater Barocius.
Crater name is given from Francesco Maurolico (16 September 1494-21 July 1575. He has worked in the fields of mathematics, geometry, optics, mechanics, music, and astronomy.
     

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