Orontius crater

Photographer: Victor Lupu
Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian reflector telescope, plossl 20mm, 2x Barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Device: Sony HDR CX105
Filter: No
Date: 14/11/2010
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: video capture

      In these photographs there are several craters in south-central area of the Moon such as Walther, Regiomontanus, Licetus and Heraclitus, Stofler, Orontius, Barocius and Maurolycus or Aliacensis and Werner.
         Orontius (122 km), visible in last photo, is a crater located northeast of the crater Tycho, and south-east of the great crater Deslandres (234 km) the big one-bottom left. Orontius's margins are overlapped by a number of different craters. A pair of craters on the west crater wall are intruded, forming the inner bulge. Little of the original wall remains intact, with the southern and south-west which has survived erosion better than other sections of crater.Orontius has "satellite" craters called from A to F.

      East of the crater is superimposed smaller craters Huggins (65 km), which is also superimposed in turn, on the east side with Nasireddin (52 km), the trio forming a chain of craters that diminishes in size . It is also joined at the south edge with the crater Saussure (54 km). On southwest, which is east of Tycho, is Pictet (62 km).

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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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(Video) Craters on the Moon seen clearly through telescope.

The south of the Moon is full of countless craters, where large basins of lava are missing. Craters Heraclitus and Licetus (90/75 km) are some of seen in these images processed also in Registax.

The astronomical telescope is pointed at the Moon's south pole, using motor tracking from Lacerta. Watch here craters as Heraclitus / Licetus (90/75 km) Maginus (163 km), Orontius (122 km), Tycho (85 km), Sasserides (90 km), Saussure (54 km).

The atmospheric quality has helped me quite a lot to shoot clear images of the area. The land in sunlight is white as milk. This color stops at the terminator at the large crater Clavius, where we encounter a hard penetrating dark.

The video was also used in Registax program to process images with higher quality, but also for simple video captures.

The video was made with the camera mounted on the telescope, to be more exact on the telescope eyepiece. To protect the telescope from vibrations, I used a tracking motor from Lacerta, and thus the image was more stable.

However, even with this tracking device for celestial bodies, there were vibrations of the telescope tube, causing the image to be slightly unstable. For this, I used the video stabilization option in Sony Vegas editing software, so the video was 100% correct on this issue.

Images processed in Registax, here.
Unprocessed images (video captures), of craters Heraclitus / Licetus are here.

170 frames, in Registax.

Moon Age: 9.05 days
Phase: 70.5% (0% = New, 100% = Full)
Distance: 399.221 km

Optics (telescope or lenses): Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope, eyepiece 20mm Plossl, 2x barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Camera: Sony CX130
Filter: no
Date: 10/03/2014
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: Sony Vegas HD Platinum 10.0

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Pictet crater south of the Moon images.

Pictet (62 km) crater is in line with Tycho (85 km) and Saussure (54 km), located between the two. This, compared to the others, is more affected, with a blunt edge, and a bombed floor showing many small craters all over it.

Pictet name is given from Marc-Auguste Pictet (23 July 1752 - 19 April 1825), who was a physicist, chemist, meteorologist and astronomer in Geneva, Switzerland.

170 frames, in Registax.

Moon Age: 9.05 days
Phase: 70.5% (0% = New, 100% = Full)
Distance: 399.221 km

Optics: Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope, 20mm Plossl, 2x barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Camera: Sony CX130
Filter: no
Date: 10/03/2014
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: FastStone Image Viewer

Image for your orientation from February 13, 2011.

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Astronomy through telescope. Crater Tycho in Registax.

1104 video frames in Registax.

302 video frames in Registax.

122 video frames in Registax.

199 video frames in Registax.

100 video frames in Registax.

247 video frames in Registax.

199 video frames in Registax.

250 video frames in Registax.

170 video frames in Registax.

Tycho is without question the most interesting southern crater on the Moon. It is small but from it starts rays hundreds of kilometers around it.

Tycho (43ºS 11ºW) has a diameter of 86 km. It is a complex crater with a terraced interior wall and central peaks. This recent crater has a bright ray model, extending for hundreds of kilometers. Extensive impact secondary fields , are visible on the surrounding terrain.

Here, Tycho is half in the dark, shadow that bypasses the central peak on the floor, being left in the light.

The images captures a much larger area around Tycho, craters that are more in number which is a feature of the South. We can observe Orontius (122 km), Sasserides (90 km), Saussure (54 km), Maginus (163 km), Heraclitus and Licetus (90/75 km), Cuvier (75 km) and the list continues.
Since the telescope moved on a wider area, Registax program has taken all the frames and created a wonderful picture of the area.

You can watch the video from which I've extracted the images and simple video captures, in other articles.

170 video frames in Registax.

Tycho crater info.

Coordinates	43.31°S 11.36°
Diameter	86 km
Depth	4.8 km
Colongitude	12° at sunrise
Eponym	Tycho Brahe

Moon Age: 9.05 days
Phase: 70.5% (0% = New, 100% = Full)
Distance: 399.221 km

Optics (telescope or lenses): Celestron C8-Newtonian telescope, eyepiece 20mm Plossl, 2x barlow
Mount: CG5 (EQ5)
Camera: Sony CX130
Filter: no
Date: 10/03/2014
Location: Baia Mare, Romania
Processing: Registax,  FastStone Image Viewer

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