October 10, 2012

Paradise From Paris

south up image by Thierry Legault, Paris, France

Superb resolution and tonal quality - Thierry Legault is back. As with yesterday's remarkable view of Petavius I am here
first attracted to the smooth ponds just outside Clavius' rim. In particular, the smooth fill in an apparent old degraded crater
just in the center of the south side of the rim of Clavius. This smooth area has almost no texture at this scale and not much
either on the QuickMap high resolution NAC images. A few other places both outside the rim and inside it have very few
superposed craters, but this is about the most pristine. The fact that different ponds have diiferent degrees of smoothness
suggests that they are of different ages. Considering that Clavius is too old for this to be impact melt, the smooth spots are
usually interpreted as being fluidized ejecta from the Orientale Basin. If so the ponds should all be the same age. One final,
observation on a completely different topic, occurs from looking at the inner rim of Rutherfurd, the large crater cutting Clavius'
southern rim. Notice a top layer of bright material that sits atop lower darker material. Is the bright layer fallback ejecta from
the Rutherfurd impact?

Chuck Wood

Technical Details
Sept 8, 2012. Celestron EdgeHD 14" and Skynyx L2.2 video camera

Related Links
Rükl plate 72
Thierry's website

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