image by Alan Friedman, Buffalo, NY
Ho hum. Another spectacuar image of Pitatus; what can be said new about it? The concentric and roughly radial rilles and the Tycho secondary crater clusters and short rays have been described in previous LPODs. As has the donut-like inner ring of the concentric crater Hesiodus A along with its twin peaklets. And a recent LPOD delighted in the basin debris in Wurzelbauer and the patch of mare material with its own rille. What is left to see and say? Start with the south rim of Pitatus - notice that Alan’s perfect tonal depiction reveals subtle light and dark radial lines along the upper scarp. These appear to be shallow gullies eroded as rim material slumped down into the jumbled piles at the bottom of the rim. Also, notice at the bottom right of the image the linear alignment of small secondary pits (which don’t show as well on Lunar Orbiter IV) - but what is their source primary crater? Look at the bottom left, at the delicately striated terrain south of Cichus. Those lineations are parallel to the ones at bottom right. So instead of coming from a crater, probably it is all ejecta from a basin. I don’t have a lunar globe with me, but it seems like these sets of striated materials may be radial to the Imbrium Basin. Is that true? Are the tiny pits southeast of Pitatus really from Imbrium?
Technical Details:
Aug 16, 2006, 9:30 UT. 10″ mak/cass at f30 with a DMK21BF04 mosaic of 6 images, 150-200 frames each.
Related Links:
Rükl charts 63 & 64.
Yesterday's LPOD: A Moving Image
Tomorrow's LPOD: A Lunar Challenge
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