January 26, 2014
Only One?
image by Avani Soares, Brazil
We only have one? Here is a region with many interesting formations including the hills north of Apennines as well as the southern Caucasus Mountains, Mons Hadley, and even Promontorium Fresnel, and the Fresnel Rimae are easily visible. But what really interests us in this photo? What matters for us Brazilians is a small crater to the left of the Fresnel Promontorium with the suggestive name "Santos Dumont"! This crater, just 8 km in diameter, is the only on the Moon named for a fellow Brazilian, an aeronautical engineer who lived from 1873 to 1932.
Until recently, no more than 10 or 15 years ago, to make a photo of Santos Dumont in Brazil was unthinkable for a simple amateur astrophotographer. This required large aperture instruments only accessible to professional observatories, so that the first Brazilian to achieve a clear photograph of Santos-Dumont was our colleague Nelson Travnik using the great German bezel, single CA Steinheil in the country, belonging to the Centre Astronomical Piracicaba, this just in on September 20, 1996. Since then, fortunately, much has changed! Telescopes have become more accessible, affordable and with improved optics. With the technique of CCD and CMOS photo then the jump in quality was fantastic. Currently any amateur with reasonable resources can get an image of Brazil's named crater!
Avani Soares
CAW NOTE: Only one? Yes, only one on the lunar nearside, but another - De Moraes is on the far side. If anyone would like to investigate craters named for people from their country, The Moon Wiki has, thanks to Jim Mosher, a list
Technical Details
126 frames stacked with AS 2, processing with Photofiltre and Irfan.
Related Links
21st Century Atlas chart 11.
Avani Soares planetary images
Yesterday's LPOD: Wilfried Tost
Tomorrow's LPOD: Details
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