October 29, 2004

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Unscrunching Orientale

LPOD-2004-10-29.jpeg

Image Credit: Alexander Vandenbohede


Unscrunching Orientale

Inspired by J-P Metsavainio's use of Photoshop software to digitally rectify images of the lunar limb, Alexander Vandenbohede of Belgium applied the technique to one of his images of the Orientale basin. The composite image above shows Alexander's original telescopic image and the inset image shows the same image after rectification. The golf ball is the digital sphere that the image was mapped onto. The result beautifully reveals the concentric rings of the Orientale basin. This is the same view that led to the discovery in the early 1960s by Bill Hartmann that Orientale was a multi-ring impact basin. The outer ring is the Cordillera Mountains and the two inner ones are the Inner and Outer Rook Mountains - see the Lunar Orbiter view of the entire structure for a clarification. In 1963, Hartmann and colleagues at the Lunar & Planetary Lab in Tucson created a Rectified Lunar Atlas - now amateurs can do the same!

Chuck Wood

Technical Details:
April 4, 2004 at 2200 UT with a 20 cm F6 Dobson.

Related Links:
Hartmann's Discovery of Orientale Rings
Rectified Lunar Atlas

Yesterday's LPOD: Britannic Moon

Tomorrow's LPOD: Another Basin on Another Limb



Author & Editor:
Charles A. Wood

 


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