Hi all
I stopped my 120mm f/8.3 to 80mm f/12.5 to cut down on the glare and control the CA on the 94% waning gibbous moon.
The cometary craters of Messier and Messier A have emerged from the night into the light. They are an odd pair, Messier A is more akin to what we expect from a crater, circular. Messier looks to have been stretched out, as if someone put their fingers on either side of the crater and pulled. The "tail" of Messier streaks out into the Mare Fecunditatis, being of newer, and lighter, material, it stands out vividly from the darker mare floor.
Observing the crater Taruntius, the central peak looks to be offset from the centre, perhaps this is as a result of the foreshortening of the crater, being close to the lunar limb.
Dorsa Cato lies between the Messiers and the Taruntius. It rises from the mare floor to a high plateau. This plateau then drops down on the opposite side. It is similar to the high plateaus found in places like Utah or New Mexico. Two small, classically round, craters, Anville and Taruntius H sit close by.
Dorsa Geike is emerging from the nightside, it is a streak of light spearing the darkness. Further south lies Dorsa Mawson, it is also coming into the light. Both are snakelike features with Mawson being the longer of the pair.
Moving south, the Rheita Valley is deep in shadow, the upper wall of the valley is still catching the suns rays and is a dazzling white. There is a clear border between shadow and light, between black and white. The valley runs straight and then makes a slight kink around the Rheita crater.
Sitting close to the western wall of Janssen lie two fault lines, rimae Janssen. They look like a pair of tiger stripes, dark against a bright background, they run down either side of Janssen L. Closer to the heart of the crater is another fault line, this is an "L" shaped feature. Whereas the other pair are dark in colour, this feature is bright white. I wonder what the colours would be when the sun is in the opposite part of the sky.
South of Janssen lies Vlacq. This crater has a smooth and featureless floor, there was no break in the uniformity that I could observe. The central peak break through this smooth layer, with the sun now above the crater rim, the shadow cast by the peak stretches halfway to the far crater wall.
Next door neighbour on the other side of Janssen is Rosenberger. This is of a similar size to Vlacq and its central peak looks to be of the same height. Where they differ is there is a crater sitting close to the southern wall that disturbs the smoothness of the floor.
On the southern wall of Hommel sit a pair of craters, Hommel D and Hommel P, nothing strange about that, except, they look to be straddling the crater wall. To my eye, it looks like there were impacts on either side of the crater rim, and yet, the wall was not breached. Both craters are touching, with a definite wall between them that seems to follow the outline of Hommel. This is a freak happening, though it looks interesting.
Montes Cordillera weaves a dark line across the lunar surface, between Cordillera and the nearby crater Cruger, there are a pair of smaller dark stripes, together with Cordillera it looks like a a pair of closed eyes and a thin lipped mouth, if you use a little imagination. On the lunar limb there rises the high peaks of Montes Rook and Mare Orientale.
On the southern limb there are peaks protruding into the night. I cannot identify them.
Paul
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