Copernicus under the same equipment setup as above, except under much better conditions which allowed a 2X barlow to be used to get a higher magnification. The sun angle is nearly identical--just slightly lower, or a few hours "earlier" in the lunar morning for the region. Despite a slower shot at higher magnification, it's a sharper picture with much more detail visible than the Copernicus shot just above. More detail in the crater floors are visible, as are the rilles to the northeast of Copernicus. North in this picture is roughly toward the upper left corner.

Prominent in the picture are the rays streaking out across the lave plains--ejecta materiel from the impact of the body that formed the crater by striking into the moon eons ago.

01-12-2003, 01:00 UT. Copernicus crater (center) region, certainly one of the most recognized and prominant features on the moon. The crater's diameter is 93 kilometers, and rougly 3-4 km deep. The energy released by the impacting body that formed this crater has been estimated at about 2 thousand megatons. The Appeninus mts enter the picture from the upper left, and terminate at the crater Eratosthenes, above and to the right of Copernicus. The small, deep crater below Copernicus is Reinhold, and Lansberg is below and to the left of Reinhold.

11-14-2002, 01:00 hrs UT. 12" F/10 SCT, eyepiece projection with a 26 mm Plossel, Nikon Coolpix 800 digital camera, Digi-T camera adapter.

The moon was low in the sky, and the picture isn't the best, but it as the best of 20 images taken.

For a better view of Copernicus, under much better seeing, check out the image directly below.Copernicus Region jpg image file.Very feature-rich region roughly just above and to the right of center of the lunar surface facing us, centered on the area between Mare Serentitus and Mare Imbrium.

Move your mouse over the image to see the individual major feature names.

The Apennius Mountains reach up from the bottom to almost touch the Caucacus Mountains in the center of the photo.

December 12, 2002, 22:00 hrs UT. Meade 12" LX200, 26 mm Plossel eyepiece, Nikon Coolpix 800 digital camera, black and white mode, 1/60 sec exposure.

Several closeup images of features in this region are available:

Vallis Alpes Closeup (slash-like feature valley just east of Plato running through the Lower Alps Highlands.)

Appenines Mountains Closeup (Mountains running up from the bottom center.)

Plato Area (Middle left-hand part of the picture.) Alphonsus-Ptolemy region. Move your mouse over the picture for feature names.

Albategnius, the large crater at the top center, runs 136 km from rim to rim; Klein, the smaller crater on its southwest wall, is 44 km in diameter.

The chain of craters to the west (left), from north to south, are Ptolemaeus (153 km), Alphonsus (119), and Arzachel (97 km, and also the youngest of the three.)



December 12, 2002, 22:00 hrs UT. Meade 12" LX200, 26 mm Plossel eyepiece, Nikon Coolpix 800 digital camera, black and white mode, 1/60 sec exposure.
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Lunar Photography

 Total Lunar Eclipse: November 8 - 9th, 2003 00:30UT (11/9)

12" SCT with 6.3 focal reducer, Kodak Royal Gold 400 film, Olympus OM-1, no mirror lockup, 3 second exposure.  Scanned from the photoshop print; this is not from the negative scan.  The image was taken just past totality--the non-shadowed region is slightly overexposed.

Click here for an 800 X 800 higher resolution image.

The images below were taken with various exposures between 23-00:00 UT.