the lunar lighthouse

hi all
here is an lunar image of aristarchus and herodotus taken from new haven observatory on the 13 oct 06, with celestron 14" cge telescope at f 11 and a toucam, processed in registax v4, the best of 800 frames from 1200 frames

on the northern outerslops of herodotus you cannot miss schroter's valley it has to be the easiest rille to spot on the moon it runs 160 km northwards from herodotus and the width is from 6 to 10 km. the valley is thought to be an ancient lava tube.

anyway hope you all like it


webtreatz.com/component/option,com_zoom/...ageNo,2/key,9/hit,1/

Thats a great pic of an interesting area.

Fab image Carl, great detail.

Well done.

Fine image! Schroter's Valley is probably my favourite lunar feature.

Very nice image Carl.

As the others were saying, it's a very interesting area of the Moon as it was where the great German selenographer Fauth noted some changes he suspected were due to volcanic gas seeping from cracks in the lunar surface. I believe that fully one-third of all Transient Lunar Phenomenon reports are to do with observations of this area.

Fauth became a close friend of Leo Brenner (whose real name was Spiridon Gopcevic) -- one of the more curious characters in astronomical history. Brenner owned an observatory equipped with a number of fine instruments but sullied his reputation with the wider astronomical community by becoming embroiled in heated debates over the validity of his observations which became more and more unbelievable (e.g. determining the rotation of Venus to .00002 of a second!) Brenner eventually did what all good confrontational astronomers do and started his own publication to profile his results! This became a vehicle for his own "scientific reports" and to ridicule many professional astronomers. Brenner tired of this after a while and promptly revealed he was selling his instruments, leaving his wife, and engaging in philosophical pursuits. No one knows where Brenner died but he does have a crater on the Moon named after him (by Fauth).

Fauth later got caught up in the wild suggestions of Hans Horbiger's "Theory of Eternal Ice" that attempted to explain all cosmic and natural phenomena in terms of ice. For example, meteors were ice crystals wafting past the Earth after being ejected from sunspots (which were themselves caused by blocks of ice falling into the Sun). Fauth and Horbiger collaborated on a massive tome to bring together all knowledge under this theory and its publication seriously damaged Fauth's standing in the astronomical community. The theory was later seized on by the Nazi's as scientific fact.

All in all, there must be a lecture in there somewhere purely on that single photo!

Thanks again for sharing it with us Carl.

John

Very nice image Carl.

As the others were saying, it's a very interesting area of the Moon as it was where the great German selenographer Fauth noted some changes he suspected were due to volcanic gas seeping from cracks in the lunar surface. I believe that fully one-third of all Transient Lunar Phenomenon reports are to do with observations of this area.

John

You are right john, A third of All TLP's are from this region. I will be covering TLPs in the next issue of spéir, which will be out in about two weeks