June 17, 2009
Beyond the Cat's Smile
image by Yuri Goryachko, Mikhail Abgarian & Konstantin Morozov, Minsk, Belarus. North mostly to the left.
Continuing south from yesterday's eastern limb on the marvelous mosaic from the Minsk Miracle imagers is Mare Marginis.
The dark floored crater Hubble on the far left links with yesterday's LPOD and the similar but bigger crater on the far right is
Neper. In between is the poorly defined impact basin that contains the Marginis lavas. One of the most fascinating features
here is the normally hard to see swirl that is brightest just north of the crater Goddard (another dark-floored crater in the
image center near the limb). But this image reveals delicate curving light stripes on the mare in front of Alhazen B (oops,
wrongly labelled A) that must be swirls. This is the clearest view of them I've seen from Earth and a better view than most
spacecraft images. In the foreground are some curved dark swaths that I have previously called Lacus Risus Felis - the Cat's
Smile Lake inspired by the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carol's Alice's Adventure in Wonderland.And finally, on the limb, a classic
profile of a crater, but which one?
Chuck Wood
Technical Details
May 31, 2009 15:38-17:25UT. Maksutov-Cassegrain Santel D=230mm F=3000mm + barlow 1.9x + Astronomik Red filter +
Unibrain Fire-i 702 CCD b/w camera (IEEE-1394, 1388x1040). Processing in Avistack and Maxim DL. Postprocessing in
Photoshop. Seeing 7-8/10, Trans 5/5.
Related Links
Rükl plate 38
Yesterday's LPOD: Out On a Gaussian Limb
Tomorrow's LPOD: Lunar Black Drop?
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