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Mare Imbrium, Mons Pico, Copernicus & Clavius


Nightspore

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The Mare Imbrium or Sea of Rains is a lava plain in the Imbrium Basin. The basin itself was almost certainly formed by a monumental collision during the Late Heavy Bombardment era. The lava-filled, one hundred kilometre crater ‘Plato’ is located in the north.

 

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There are several interesting objects in this area including the Montes Teneriffe and Montes Recti ranges. One of my favourites is the solitary Mons Pico mountain.

 

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Mons Pico, Arizona State University, Apollo Browse Gallery (NASA)

 

It is about twenty five kilometres long. The peak is nearly two and a half kilometres high. Mons Pico can often be very striking when caught by sunlight. Copernicus is a ninety three kilometre wide impact crater visible with most binoculars. When it is near the terminator it can show a lot of internal detail. The central peaks are over a kilometre high and the spectacularly terraced crater walls are easily viewed. 

 

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Clavius is the second largest crater on the visible lunar surface. It is highly detailed and features a convex floor plain. There is a recognisable arcing chain of craters in the floor of Clavius known as D, C, N, J and JA. The crater chain was probably formed by an exploding object after Clavius itself was formed.

 

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The Moon (in Leo) will be 68.3% illuminated and 48°, 11’ altitude at 21:30 BST on 10/5/22.

 

Screenshots by courtesy of SkySafari Pro

 

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Think I’ll be foiled by clouds again tonight.  Though I shouldn’t be surprised as my Baader Amici Prism arrived today.

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23 minutes ago, Streetbob said:

Think I’ll be foiled by clouds again tonight.  Though I shouldn’t be surprised as my Baader Amici Prism arrived today.

 

Yeah, Baader Amicis are cloud magnets for sure lol. The Big Mak is outside and cooling as I write this. I'm not optimistic though as there seems to be considerable sky porridge. 

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Nice report and Lunar objects i'm very familiar with.

Sadly its cloudy here in Derby and rain is expected tomorrow.

 

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2 minutes ago, Bino-viewer said:

Nice report and Lunar objects i'm very familiar with.

Sadly its cloudy here in Derby and rain is expected tomorrow.

 

 

Thanks. I actually managed to see all of those objects tonight .... for about five minutes due to excessive sky porridge lol. 

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