CN FORUMS ARCHIVE Telescope Reviews: All about Mee

OBSERVATION REPORT 20051112

OBSERVER: Eric C. Graff
DATE/TIME: 12 November 2005, 03:20 to 04:20 UT
LOCATION: Rancho Peñasquitos, San Diego, California (Home)
TEMPERATURE: 52°F (11°C)
TRANSPARENCY: NELM 3.5
STEADINESS: Antonaidi III (at 240x)
TELESCOPE: Parks Astrolight 6" (15.2 cm) f/6 Newtonian Reflector
EYEPIECES/MAGNIFICATIONS: Parks Gold Series Plössls (30 mm, 20mm, and 7.5 mm), Parks Gold Series 2x Barlow (30x, 45x, 60x, 90x, 120x, 240x)

It’s been a while since I’ve pointed my scope at the moon or (not coincidentally) contributed much too this forum. Friday evening, however, I was able to make the following observation of a striking pair of craters perched on the sunrise terminator.

Mee and Hainzel: Located in the rugged highlands of the moon’s southern hemisphere is an ancient ruined crater of relatively low profile that really needs to be right on the terminator to be seen well. This crater is named Mee. As the sun rises over its shattered walls its prominence is rapidly diminished. At the time of this observation it was an impressive sight, however. Lit by the rising sun, the ragged ramparts of Mee’s western wall were launched in stark relief against the darkness of lunar night behind them a few peaks glowed dully in the first rays of morning beyond the western boundaries of the crater. The eastern walls cast their meager shadows across a small portion of the crater’s floor. A prominent craterlet, Mee F I believe, was easily seen on the crater floor as well as a few haphazardly placed hills or ridges. Nearby the palimpsest Mee E was partly flooded by the shadows of the more substantial crater Hainzel. One final feature of note on the floor of Mee is a craterlet near the eastern walls that is noted for its high albedo (Wikipedia). I did not detect this craterlet directly by the crater floor was noticeably brighter in its vicinity; it is also possible this feature was still lost under the shadows of the eastern walls. This crater is named in honor Arthur B. P. Mee, a Scottish astronomer and writer who lived between 1860 and 1926 and noted for his observations of the Moon and Mars. This crater has a diameter of 132 km (Rükl, 1990).

Hainzel is a composite of at least three impacts. The overall shape has been compared to that of a pear (Wlasuk, 2000). The original impact (on the northeastern ramparts of Mee) was subsequently disrupted by the impact of Hainzel C to the northeast and Hainzel A to the north. Hainzel A, being the youngest still has a prominent central peak, which was, unfortunately, still lost in shadow at the time of my observation. What I thought was a central peak for the southern part of the crater is apparently a ridge thrown up between Hainzel and Hainzel C. Paul Hainzel was a German astronomer who worked in cooperation with Tycho Brahe in the 1570’s. Hainzel measures 70 km in diameter (Rükl, 1990)

Among the other features indicated on my sketch are a pair of small craters, nearly equal in size to the east. These are Epimenides and Epimenides S, with the much smaller Epimenides A to the south. Lacus Timoris is the name of the elongated swath of maria basalts east of Hainzel.

REFERENCES & ADDITIONAL READING

Rükl, Antonín. 1990. Atlas of the Moon. Kalmbach Publishing Co. Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Wlasuk, Peter T. 2000. Observing the Moon. Springer-Verlag. London, Great Britain.

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Eric
6" f/6 Parks Newtonian
10x50 Bushnell Binocs

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