The floor of Plato is normally a featureless space, but with the 8 day old moon last evening the sun has only just risen over the crater with the shadows of the western wall stretching across the crater floor, half covering it in darkness, a nice effect. The shadows of the western crater rim shows a dramatic series of peaks and troughs.
There is a single sharp shadow from a crater wall peak that reaches halfway across Plato, the shadow is triangular in shape and indicates a tall lip on the wall. Just below this shadow there is a second one, much smaller and a clear valley between them.
A more rounded shadow lies to the north of the central darkness.
To the south is another sharp and pointed shadow. This shadow is incredibly thin, no more than a dark needle that races across Plato's floor to the eastern wall and disappears into darkness, this shadow is less than half the width of the central shadow, quite dramatic.
On the crater walls themselves there is extensive terracing that shows up in sharp detail this early on a lunar morning. There is a single diagonal slash on the outer western wall, towards the south-west with a counterpart that is almost indentical to the north-east of the inner eastern wall.
The effect of the shadows on the crater floor give this moment a quality that is quite beautiful to behold.
Paul
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