December 1, 2012

Shadows Climbing Rims

image by Rik Hill, Tucson, Arizona

The faulted floor of Gassendi is always a treat but I particularly like the detail in the walls of the crater as they catch the first rays of the rising sun. The shadow of the central peak almost touches the far wall but down in Doppelmayer the shadow of it's central peak goes completely over the wall of this ruined old crater. There are beautiful dorsa running from Doppelmayer to Gassendi. Just north of Gassendi you can just make out Rima Herigonius. Notice the shadow in Herigonius itself, it is not smoothly curved but quite ragged either due to the surface it falls on or the wall of the crater. A quick look at LROC data shows this crater to have a very smooth wall on the sunward side but a highly irregular floor and far wall. The smallest crater visible in this image is about a kilometer across.

Rik Hill

Technical Details
Most of the image capture information is on the image itself. In addition Registax 6 was used to stack and select 200/2000 images used. Further processing was done with Irfanview, GIMP and the mosaic made with AutoStitch.

Related Links
Rükl plate 52
21st Century Atlas chart 23.

Yesterday's LPOD: Golden

Tomorrow's LPOD: Southeastern Tilt

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