February 15, 2008

Another Corner

image by Rafael Benavides, Posadas, Córdoba, Spain

Rafael has had fabulous luck with Humorum. He has captured excellent images of the [/February+7%2C+2008 southeast] and [/February+8%2C+2008 southwest] corners of the basin, and now the northwest. His images are low Sun closeups of the region between the maria and outer basin rings. This is typically a swampy area where ejecta, mountain rings and localized puddles of mare lava intermix. And that is what is here, with a variety of rilles, mostly heading northwards. There are also some domes. The biggest definite dome is on the floor of Mersenius P, indicated by its slightly bright sun-facing slope matched with a slightly dusky shadowed side. A somewhat smaller dome (arrow) occurs to the north on the lava-covered floor of a possible ruined crater. Although these two domes look very similar a glance at the Clementine UVVIS multi-spectral mosaic shows that the smaller dome formed on dark mare material, but the one in P is on mare-looking stuff that is covered with bright ejecta - it is probably the older of the two domes. A third, possible larger dome is hinted at on the floor of Mersenius, just above the "M". This one occurs where there are many thin rilles and the Clementine image shows a volcanic dark halo at about the same spot. Is it a real dome?

Chuck Wood

Technical Details
Jan 19, 2008. Celestron 11 + Barlow 2X + Luna-QHY 5 mono camera.
Today's LPOD is just a piece of a larger image.

Related Links
Rükl plate
Rafael's website

Yesterday's LPOD: Rooks, but not Rooked

Tomorrow's LPOD: A Simple Scene

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