A Walk on the Moon

This is a set of lunar images I took with my 125mm MAK and the ASI 120MM imager. The ASI is a very good monochrome imager and matches the MAK pretty well. Images were captured with Firecapture and stacked and processed in Registax.

The first image is of the famous Alpine Valley area (click to see a larger image). The valley is a line extending into the Lunar Alps (Montes Alpes) just above and to the left of center in the image. It is 166 km long and about 10 km wide.

The second image is the crater Copernicus:

Copernicus is 93 km in diameter and has a prominent ray system (the lighter "splashes" around the crater). The terracing of the crater interior is clearly visible in this image. These terraces are the result of landslides as the walls of the crater collapsed. The sloping rampart around the crater is about 30 km across.

Gassendi can be found at the northern edge of Mare Humorum. As you can see, the crater has been filled with lava during the formation of the Mare. The gap at around the 3 o'clock position is as low as 200 meters high; the highest part of the crater rises 2.5 km above the surface.