Aristarchus region

Absolutely fantastic Carl. It's so clear!

Trev

Lovely image Carl ... as Dave said, it's hard to snap at times because it's so bright a crater. There's some fine detail in the rilles and wrinkle ridges too in your picture. Well done!

A crater with a chequered history.

W.H. Pickering believed the bright patches of lunar soil were actually geysers of material and gas erupting from the interior. Sadly, his insistence on being correct did not endear him to his contempories.

Pickering also believed he noticed changes in the crater Erathosthenes and was convinced they were due to swarms of lunar insects migrating across it's floor!!!

The book "Epic Moon" by William Sheehan and Thomas Dobbins has a great chapter on Pickering's career (titled "The Madman of Mandeville")

Recommended reading for anyone interested in lunar selenography (along with Ewan Whittaker's "Mapping and Naming the Moon")

Pickering also believed he noticed changes in the crater Erathosthenes and was convinced they were due to swarms of lunar insects migrating across it's floor!!!

I almost get the impression John that you think this theory is in some way incorrect?

I almost get the impression John that you think this theory is in some way incorrect?

Of course! It was really the mass migration of lunar mice to a rather tasty freshly exposed vein of Camembert de Normandie

Cool sharp image, I took a look at the moon each time I was sketching Holmes. The seeing was terrible, last night it looked like a river of water was flowing over the surface of the moon. You got some great detail on the lunar surface, Vallis Schroter is one of my favourite targets.

The comet frenzy has left me little time to catch a sketch of the waning moon even though it looked spectacular with Mars so close by at 00:30 UT this morning.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
President
Irish Astronomical Society 1937 - 2007
Public Relations Officer IFAS
www.deirdrekelleghan.com/
homepage.eircom.net/~irishas/index.htm
www.irishastronomy.org/

Fab image Carl, really sharp with oodles of detail

Do I get the impression you like Aristarchus?