March 11, 2004

Where is Yesterday's LPOD?

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Image Credit: Tony Rukl

Where is Yesterday's LPOD? Yesterday's LPOD was the remarkably high resolution image of a small piece of the Moon taken two years ago with one of the European Southern Observatory's 8.2 m telescope. Accepting the ESO press release, I stated that the image showed an area just inside the crater Taruntius. ESO and I were wrong. Tony Rukl, the most acclaimed lunar mapper alive, immediately emailed me that ESO had mis-identified the location. Tony sent the comparison image above on which he has identified the crater Asada (formerly Taruntius A), which the ESO press release mis-identified as Cameron (formerly Taruntius C). Tony also marked various ridges that appear on both the Orbiter IV image and on the ESO one - there is no doubt, the ESO image shows an area 70-80 km east of where they thought! Mouse-over the image to see a map version of the image location. This relocation solves a mystery that I puzzled over in writing yesterday's LPOD - what was the source of the elongated crater chains in the southwest corner of the ESO image? Now, with the new location, the explanation is simple - they are secondary craters from the formation of Taruntius! This is an area of very poor Lunar Orbiter and Clementine imagery and would be an excellent target for high resolution amateur webcam work! Thanks, Tony, for the correction! Related Links: Lunar Orbiter IV - 191 image ESO Press Release Tomorrow's LPOD: Forming the Moon

Author & Editor: Charles A. Wood Technical Consultant: Anthony Ayiomamitis A service of: ObservingTheSky.Org Visit these other PODs: Astronomy | Mars | Earth

 

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