image by Mike Salway, Australia
A serious theory introduced a decade or so ago proposed that once a discovery had been made it was easier for other researchers to repeat the discovery even though it had not been reported. I don’t know if nature is that strange, but there is something similar in lunar imaging. Once someone cracks the code and acquires a remarkable image of a feature, other imagers soon do it too. This is not meant at all to disparage this or any other image, but it is simply awesome that very subtle features such as the rille on the floor of the Alpine Valley that used to be nearly impossible to image are becoming more familiar. Mike’s excellent image with his 10″ dobsonian telescope not only shows the rille and it sinuosity but also the crater pits along the rille and the cross-structure near its middle. The nature of the structure is not clear, even after looking at the high res Lunar Orbiter V shot. From Mike’s image the curved dark shadow suggests a low fault cuts across the Valley. And do you notice the concentric crater?
Chuck Wood
Technical Details:
October 1, 2006. 10″ dob on EQ platform + 5x Powermate barlow + DMK21AF04 + Astronomik Red filter. Processed in Registax, AstraImage and Photoshop
Related Links:
Rükl plate 4
Mike’s website
Stephen Keene’s classic view
Yesterday's LPOD: Having Trouble with Mosaics?
Tomorrow's LPOD: Mountains Near the South Pole
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