During the time around the Moon's first quarter there are amazing craters to see! During the Spring of 2017 I was able to grab a few photographs of a great looking crater known as Aristoteles.
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| First Quarter |
Observing the Moon is quite fun, you can see many different things without too much optical aid. I decided to look in the northern region at about 17°E to the crater Aristoteles. The terminator had passed through the crater a few days before but it still looked decent.
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| Aristoteles |
I noticed two prominent mountains near the center of the crater with a few smaller scattered mountains. The walls were evidently terraced around the full circumference. I noticed that Aristoteles interrupts the smaller crater Mitchell on its western side. Mitchell, about a third of the size, is partially filled by the ejecta from the impact that created the younger Aristoteles.
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| Aristoteles Wide Field |
The region around Aristoteles was interesting. Eudoxus is a prominent crater just to the South and the complex Bürg was found just to the East with a very obvious mountain in the middle. Vallis Alpes "Alpine Valley" was noticeable just to the West running from Mare Imbrium "Sea of Rains" towards Mare Frigoris "Sea of Cold".
Aristoteles is 87 km in diameter and is located in Mare Frigoris. Mare Frigoris is a large lunar sea that stretches along the northern reaches of the Moon.
To photograph the crater I used a high frame rate video camera to capture a couple thousand frames. I then stacked 20% of the best frames in a stacking program and processed the final image.
I hope you have a chance to look at the Moon at first quarter through binoculars or a telescope sometime soon!
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