Spotting Moon Craters
January 4th 2011 03:18
Category: No Category
Finding your way in the night sky can be a bit of a challenge but it is possible to see something of interest, (unless you have cloudy skies).
At times it is not always possible to see the bright stars or most of the major constellations if you live in a brightly lit suburb or big city.
Why not try spotting major craters on the moon.
Even with low power telescope or a set of binoculars you will be able to navigate your way around the moon surface and spotting the major craters can be fun. There are literally thousands of craters to choose from but the best bet is to start locating the larger ones.
One of my favorites is a major crater named Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes is located towards the middle left quadrant of the moon.
The lower image can be used as a guide.
The crater was named Eratosthenes in Honor of Greek astronomer who lived circa 277-198 BC. This crater is perhaps one of the best example of a perfectly formed deep Crater.
This crater is best seen just before the full moon, otherwise the light from the nearby crater Copernicus will make spotting Eratosthenes a little difficult.
A 4 inch telescope would be ideal for crater spotting. Even a pair of 10X50 binoculars would be a good starting point.
Spotting the Copernicus crater is relatively easy Copernicus is the larger crater at 93 km Eratosthenes is 58km it's located just a little to the right of Copernicus.
Happy crater spotting
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by James Rickard
unlucky_ fishermen.com
Angling Fish
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Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
The poor old Moon is often overlooked (pun intended) I agree there is plenty of interesting nooks and crannies to explore even with a small telescope. Especially the southern end of the Moon’s Apennines mountain ranges when the light is right It is a great view.
Thank you for the comment
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
It is a good question, I get asked this one a lot.
The Moon orbits the Earth roughly every 28 days but the Moon it self takes about the same time to rotate on it’s axis in other words the Moon’s “day” is 28 Earth days long.
As the Moon rotates on its axis so slowly we see the same “face”. At certain times of the month we can see a very small portion of the “dark” side of the Moon( Pardon my Pink Flyod era)
I hope this makes sense LOL.
I use the Basketball analogy
If you have a basket ball and an orange place the orange in front of the basket ball place a small stencil mark on the orange then move the orange around the basketball like an orbit, but slowly rotate the orange keeping the same stencil facing the basketball.
It may look like you are doing weird things but i am rather eccentric.
I hope it helps illustrate the concept
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief