September 18, 2017

Domeland: Known

Originally published March 5, 2008
image by Jim Phillips, dome numbers from paper by Wöhler and colleagues

In 2005 Jim imaged what I termed Domeland, the region west of Copernicus that abounds in domes of various types. And now he has revisited the zone, with larger image scale and higher resolution. Something else has changed since 2005 - we now know much more about lunar domes and the ones in this area because of the work of the Geologic Lunar Research Group, of which Jim is an active member. In 2006 the group published in Icarus, the professional journal of planetary science, the first modern paper about the shapes and compositions of lunar domes. In the study, led by Christian Wöhler, the heights of domes M6 and M12 were found to be equal - 230 m - but M12 is much steeper (2.7° vs 1.3°), just as it looks in the image. The little dome M8 is steepest, all of 3.5°. Since this landmark paper the GLR has continued to investigate more domes. Two things are amazing about their work - its is done by amateur astronomers (although all are professionals in other fields), and it is largely based on amateur images such as Jims!

Chuck Wood

Technical Details
Feb 16, 2008. TMB 8" F/9

Related Links
Rükl plate 30
Two weeks in Domeland

Comments!

Yesterday's LPOD: No News is Bad News

Tomorrow's LPOD: Ash-Buried History

---

COMMENTS

(1) I imaged exactly this region on February 16th 2008 at slightly lower sun angle, especially dome (M13) is more obvious in my picture.

You can see it here

South is up in my image.

- bdeclerc

---

COMMENTS?

Register, Log in, and join in the comments.

---