Shadows on the Moon

Interesting shapes and features seen when the Moon is 3 days old.

All images on this page were taken with a Meade 14″ LX200ACF Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope and a Flea3 U3-13S2M video camera at a typical frame rate of 78 fps. The corresponding exposure of 6.4 milliseconds ‘freezes’ the atmospheric turbulence (or ‘seeing’) and subsequent processing in AutoStakkert and Registax selects the sharpest frames and stacks them into a final image. The first image below comprises 200 frames. All images were taken on 23 March 2015 from my observatory in Cheshire. The young moon (3.4 days since New) and corresponding low angle of the Sun causes the long shadows that reveal the stunning topography.

Sunrise over Mare Crisium

Sunrise over Mare Crisium showing wrinkle ridges where the erupted lava has cooled and shrunk over time.

South is up in this image.

Mr Punch on the Moon

South is again up in this image which helps me to visualize the shadow retreating across the floor of crater Endymion as a sharp-nosed face with a pointy chin in profile – Mr Punch from Punch & Judy!