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Description
Thousands of bright impact craters and the darker ancient lava floes of the lunar maria adorn the near side of earth's only natural satellite. The smallest craterlets in this image span only a mile or so, while the largest maria are the flooded floors of craters the size of Texas. The broken mountain ranges arcing up from the rayed crater Copernicus (center left) define the edge of one such monster impact - which created the large Mare Imbrium or "Sea of Rains". The bright rayed crater Tycho (bottom center) is younger than most of the other craters - only around 100 million years old or so - and so the ejected material seems to cover over the earlier features in all directions and give the highlands a sort of "orange peel" look from the light rays radiating outward.

This close-up of the waxing gibbous (more than half lit, moving toward full) moon was a first light shot for both my Canon Rebel XSI and my Celestron C9.25 scope (fl 2350mm, f/10). Mosaic of two images, both 1/320 sec at ISO 400.

Description
Thousands of bright impact craters and the darker ancient lava floes of the lunar maria adorn the near side of earth's only natural satellite. The smallest craterlets in this image span only a mile or so, while the largest maria are the flooded floors of craters the size of Texas. The broken mountain ranges arcing up from the rayed crater Copernicus (center left) define the edge of one such monster impact - which created the large Mare Imbrium or "Sea of Rains". The bright rayed crater Tycho (bottom center) is younger than most of the other craters - only around 100 million years old or so - and so the ejected material seems to cover over the earlier features in all directions and give the highlands a sort of "orange peel" look from the light rays radiating outward.

This close-up of the waxing gibbous (more than half lit, moving toward full) moon was a first light shot for both my Canon Rebel XSI and my Celestron C9.25 scope (fl 2350mm, f/10). Mosaic of two images, both 1/320 sec at ISO 400.