Sunday 4 August 2013

Mare Humorum

Captured 3 days after last quarter Mare Humorum is another fine example of a lunar sea. Formed approx 3.9 billion years ago from a huge impact. The resulting impact basin filled with lava. At 390km in lenth it is one of the smaller Mare visible to us. The seeing was of poor quality during this imaging session. So apologies that this image is not tho the usual standard.

 Features...
    Dominated by a more recent impact Gassendi has a wealth of features by itself from numerous hills and Rilles to the amazing double peaks. It's walls are well eroded but the rim still visible above the lava floor. Below Gassendi is what appears to beach, as the lava cools and cracks it has formed what apears as concentric rings to the basin edge. Futher down on the southern shores is the half sunken crater of Doppelmayer, and the almost "Ghost crater" Puiseux. Moving East you can clearly see a series of Rille known as Rimae Hippalus. The cental floor is littered with craterlets as large as 10km. Numerous hills are visible as their shadows are cast across the smooth plains.

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California Nebula

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