Moon 
With exception of the
Sun, our Moon is of course the most striking celestial body, for
a few rather obvious reasons.
Seen from Earth, the Moon
is the brightest object - apart from the Sun - in the sky. From
an astronomical point of view, it is extremely close. It can be
seen as a huge disk and reveals an enormous amount of surface
details. Finally, the Moon's presence is responsible for most
of Earth's high and low tides.
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Capuanus
is a crater that was flooded with lava. Its surroundings show
beautiful details. This crater is about 60 kilometres wide. It
was named after the Italian theologian and astronomer Francesco
Capuano di Manfredonia, who lived in the 15th century.
This
crater is a fine example of the extraordinary amount of detail,
visible even in very small telescopes or binoculars. |
Even with the naked eye,
different types of terrain can be seen as well as the largest
craters. Observations with telescopes or binoculars provide a
breathtaking view. The images found on this page, show many beautiful
plains, craters, mountains and rilles. Near the terminator, the
borderline between light and darkness, you can see the differences
in heights of structures on the lunar surface, due to their shadows.
The terminator moves very
fast across the Moon's surface. You can see the view of mountains
and craters change as they receive more or less light from the
Sun. Because all shadows keep changing in length, you can constantly
see different surface details of the same area as hours or days
go by.
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The large
crater Clavius, is about 225 kilometres wide. As the Sun raises
higher in the Moon's sky, its seems to change considerably in
a short time. The shadows in these two images, got shorter very
fast. |
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The presence of Earth's
companion provides two other spectacular phenomena also. As the
Moon moves between Earth and the Sun, a solar eclipse occurs.
When Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon, we can see a lunar
eclipse.
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Most
images on this page are CCD-images. Unfortunately, CCD-cameras
are rather expensive but there seems to be a useful and cheap
alternative to make nice images.
More
and more amateurs experiment with webcams. On the webcampage
you can find mor lunar images, with sometimes pretty good results.
Left: Rima Hyginus with Vesta Pro webcam. |
More images, see: Webcam and Digital
camera.
Click
on the thumbnails for a larger image.
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The Moon during twilight
in a beautiful sunset. The red colour is caused by the Earth's
atmosphere which lets us see mainly the red part of the Sun's
light. This phenomenon is also responsible for the orange-red
colour of the Moon during a lunar eclipse. |
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A few hours before full
Moon. The last part of the terminator is just visible. This image
was made with a 500 mm telelens and CCD-camera. We can see differences
in surface brightness. No shadows means we can not estimate heights
well. |
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This phase of the Moon provides
us with an overwhelming amount of details on the surface along
the terminator. |
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The large crater Janssen
and surroundings. |
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One of the most impressive
features on the Moon, is the wall of the crater around Mare Imbrium.
When the lighting is like this, the wall sits in full sunlight
while part of the bottom is still covered in darkness. |
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Here we see Rima Ariadaeus
(220 km) in the middle. To the left: Rima Hyginus (220 km). To
the far left: crater Triesnecker with the faint Rimae Triesnecker
(200 km). This whole area has the largest system of rilles on
the Moon. |
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Mare Crisium is a large
sea which is totally surrounded by mountains; it is about 570
km wide. Its size of 176.000 square kilometres is equal to Great
Britain. |
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One of the most spectacular
lunar sights: Clavius and surroundings. Some other nice craters,
are Longomontanus (145 km) and Moretus (114 km), which has a
central mountain and beautiful terrace shaped walls. |
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Until now, this is my most
detailed image of the crater Clavius. It was made at the primary
focus of the C11 with a Barlowlens 2x and CCD-camera. |
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The crater Tycho lies in
a very mountainous region with many other craters. To the right
we see Clavius. This part of the Moon is very impressive in a
telescope. |
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When the Moon is full, you
can not see shadows caused by differences in height. However,
the differences in surface brightness make observations interesting
as well at that moment. |
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These images show the area
that was newly formed after the huge impact that formed the crater
of Tycho, 50 kilometres wide. Debris of the impact are scattered
over a quarter of the Moon's surface. |
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This striking feature is
one of the largest and brightest that was formed during the Tycho
impact. |
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In the middle we see the
large crater Longomontanus, 145 kilometres wide. Its walls are
beautiful with much detail. Above and below Longomontanus, we
see the craters Hainzel (70 km) and Mee (132 km). Tycho and Clavius
are also visible in this picture. |
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Crater Catharina en Rupes
Altai, a 480 kilometres long mountain range. To the left of the
middle, we can see the striking crater Sacrobosco (98 km) which
has three smaller craters inside. This area is very impressive. |
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Crater Copernicus at full
Moon. This is one of the most striking large craters, due to
its bright nimbus. Copernicus is 93 kilometres wide and from
top to bottom it is 3.760 metres deep. |
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Moretus (114 km), has a
central peak and nice terrace shaped crater walls. The crater
with the dark bottom to the upper left, is named Klaproth. |
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The striking, large crater
is Gassendi (110 km / 1.860 m). The plain to the right is Mare
Humorum (380 km). In the middle of this picture lies a very small
crater, named Herigonius (15 km / 2.100 m). |
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The largest crater, to the
right, is Petavius (177 km). It has a rille inside that is 80
kilometres in length. The small crater with central peak in the
middle of this picture is Stevinus (75 km). |
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This is the dark crater
Plato (101 km) and surroundings. To the right we can see Alpine
Valley. The large sea is Mare Imbrium. It has some nice mountain
peaks in it with heights of 1.800 to 2.400 metres. |
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In extreme closeup: large
Hipparchus (150 km / 3.320 m). To the far right we can see 4
smaller craters. From bottom to top: Halley (36 km / 2.510 m),
Hind (29 km / 2.980 m), Hipparchus C (17 km / 2.940 m) and Hipparchus
L (13 km / 2.630 m). |
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Full Moon. Just below the
middle of the picture is the large crater Theophilus (100 km
/ 4.400 m). The wall of this crater towers high above the lunar
landscape (1.200 metres) Its central peak is 1.400 metres high.
To the upper right: craters Messier and Messier A, from which
2 striking bright features seem to be starting off. These were
probably formed by the very shallow impact of a meteorite. |
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When the Sun is low in de
sky, nice, long shadows can be seen from the Caucasus mountains
(length: 520 km, height: up to 6 km). Half hidden in the dark,
is the crater Cassini. To the lower right: parts of the craters
Aristillus en Autolycus. |
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Vallis Schröteri is
a very nice winding valley, about 160 km in length. It is 500
m to 10 km wide and about 1 km deep. The two striking craters
below are Herodotus (35 km) and Aristarchus (40 km / 3.000 m).
These objects can be found in a great plain: Oceanus Procellarum. |
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The crater in the middle
of the picture is Wargentin (84 km). It is almost totally filled
up with lava. To the right we can see one of the most peculiar
craters on the Moon. This is the oval shaped Schiller (179 x
71 km). |
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Left: crater Sinus Iridum
(260 km). Right: crater Gassendi (110 km).
Both are Vesta Pro webcam images.
Also
see: Webcam page for more similar images. |
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Total lunar eclipse
of april 4, 1996 |
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Full
Moon |
Animated
gif (276 kb) |
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Images on Fuji 400 ASA film
for color slides , with a 500mm Maksutov telelens. The slides
were scanned and combined with Paint Shop Pro. |
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Here an image of the Moon
and stars was added as seen with the naked eye. |
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00.15 |
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00.55 |
01.10 |
01.25 |
02.00 |
