
Seven Wonders of the Moon
Lunar MISSION:
POSSIBLE
The Seven
Wonders of the Moon
08/01/05
If this is your first mission, you’re invited to divert your attention to the mission briefing ...
"Good evening, Observer "Phelps".
One of our deep-cover operative dressed
as a tourist on seemingly innocent tour to the Seven Wonders of the Natural
World has discovered that the tour company is a front for a covert plot to
carve out real estates on the Moon that are currently penny cheap. They
intend
to turn these real estates into the "Seven Wonders of the Moon" gold
mine to
fund their aperture fever propaganda
! Your mission should you
decide to accept is to survey these chosen real estates properties, determine
if the sites
are truly wondrous and if possible foil their plot. As usual
should any
member of the observing audience be caught stumbling over his/her
telescope,
Cloudy Nights will disavow all knowledge. Good luck."
On earth we have the Seven Wonders of the Natural World, but what about on
the Moon? Well,
don't
be embarrassed; I too forgot what the ones on earth are
. Here's a
quickie grade school
reminder
lesson
. Has anyone been to
all of them? Well, I sure have gone to only a handful of
them
. But
the great
thing about the Moon is that we can go there through our telescope and with
a
steep-discount
fare at that. So let's board our telescope and don our
spy disguise
.
Mare Serenitatis
Our first stop takes us to a vast "dried up sea"
, Mare
Serenitatis, almost 400 miles in diameter. Rumor
has it that prime real estate property in this region is a strong possibility.
Its relatively smooth surface is
ideal for real estate developer. In order to survey this region completely
and well, you must watch it over
three different night, starting at a 5-day old Moon. While exploring
properties, you may wish to let the kids
out hunting tiny craters scattered throughout the dried "sea bed"
(see how many they can find).
Mare Serenitatis
Sometimes when looking at the Moon at high power, one certainly can see lots
of "trees" but misses out of
how
the "forest" look like. Here's an example. Under low power of 82x
(12mm Radian), my 5-inch NP127
Light
Cup noted the color difference where Mare Tranquillitatis encroaches slightly
into Mare Serentitatis; the
color
of Mare Tranquillitatis is much darker gray whereas Mare Serentitatis is light
gray! It was also the first
time I
noticed two very lengthy main ray emanating from Crater Bessel running
north-south from both sides of
the
crater! My 2-4mm Nagler zoom revealed the Valentine Doom (4mm just right, 3.5 - 3mm able to get
scale-like :feel")
Of course, Mare Serenitatis is the result of a giant impact on the Moon.
But what's this? Oh no, it looked like
we're
too late and someone
had
already staked a claim to the Sea of Serenity.
Ptolemaeus Area
Crater Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel indubitably combine to form one of the
grandest area on the
Moon. Here the potential for real estate development is limitless.
We have crater with flat floor and not central
peak and a shallow "saucers" perhaps due to saucer landing
,
crater with teeny central peak with black spots,
and crater with large off-center peak and fairly rough floor.
Alphonsus has several craterlets surrounded by black material. These
black spots are believed to be volcanic
in origin. Perhaps this is why this area is so prized similar to Paracutin
volcano, one of the seven wonders
located in Mexico. If you are in the area, be sure to rent a horse that
will take you to the remains of the lava
covered church. Astronomer Pickering thought the black patches in Alphonsus were vegetation.
Although we
know today that
they're not, Pickering could have been "right" when this real estate is eventually
developed and
a greenhouse
can be built on top of the rich fertile black "soil"
.
See this spectacular surveillance
photo.
Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus, Arzachel courtesy of esteemed
CN member Rich
This region is also famous for reports from astronomers and amateurs of
changes throughout history. My Light
Cup and I have not witnessed any but we like to keep an opened mind
.
We shall revisit this site later in the
not so distant future.
The "Great" Straight Wall
What a prime real estate that stretches into the horizon for 110km!
Already this suspicious tour company are
planning of charging the amateur astronomer a premium package price in an
attempt to lure the observer from the
tour to the Great Wall of China
.
But my Light Cup uncovered the racket and discovered that the earthy Great
Wall is a mind-boggling 6300 km long, nearly 6X longer than the Straight Wall.
See this interesting photo
taken
by the Space Shuttle.
However, the Great Wall of China is merely 9m high at best in contrast to
the Straight Wall which rises at a
slope of 41° to a height
of 300m at its highest point! It was interesting that with my 5-inch NP127
Light Cup, I
could not make out the Straight Wall at 16x but obvious at 33x (20mm TV Plossl).
Even at high power such
as 175x-200x, the Straight Wall indeed looks fairly straight but this Clementine
photo shows otherwise
!
Thus,
the Straight Wall as Sir Patrick Moore aptly noted is neither straight nor a
wall .
Finally, my Light Cup has
imagined how the wall would look like on the surface on the Moon many times,
haven't we all? Well, let one of
my favorite author,
Jack Kramer, stretch our imagination.
Copernicus
Dr. Charles Wood wrote in his book, The Modern Moon, that Crater
Copernicus is one of the grandest craters
in the entire solar system.
So majestic is Crater Copernicus that astronomer Hevelius named it after "Mount
Aetna" when he first
made a map of
Copernicus in 1647. During the dawn of lunar observation, the craters
were
thought to
be volcanoes. So it should come to no surprise that Crater Copernicus
actually was named
after this earthly
volcano.
Fortunately for us all, the "fiery mountain" has been "extinguished" long ago by
a great
impact . One
can almost imagine the calmness on the floor of Copernicus some 55 km in
diameter. Here's a
ground floor
view of
Copernicus. Wouldn't it be nice to have a log cabin one top of one of the
central peak
1km above the floor
.
Clavius
Peter Grego wrote in his book, Moon Observer's Guide, that Clavius is a
"feature of grand proportions and
great beauty." And what a truly beautiful crater of a property it surely is
!
It is so large that the curvature of
the lunar surface can actually be seen through a small telescope, best view at
9-10 day old Moon.
Oh so you don't believe in any of these real estates tips?
Well, let us so inform you then that you may actually
be a wee bit late. Back in 2001, a
moon base has
already been
built on Crater Clavius
.
While scouting for a new home site, let the kids loose to go craterlet
counting. My 4-inch TV-102 Light Cup
counted up to 35 craterlets (which of course includes the largest crater within
Clavius). Chase, another fella
kindred spirit owner
of the TV-102 light cup, holds the record so far for a
4-incher of a whopping 43
craterlets
!
Sinus Iridium
Sinus Iridium must be the finest "bay" on the entire Moon. Judging by
its shape, perhaps Sinus Iridium deserves
the name "Half-Moon Bay" much more so than the earthly bay that bear this name southwest
of San Francisco
!
Neither can the brand bay at Rio de Janeiro matches it! When I took an "aerial view" of the bay through
my Light Cup, it looks like a
prime spot for terra tourists
.
I can imagine that a hotel similar to La Quinta Real
that is situated on an old
bull fighter ring in Mexico might
be built into
Crater Bianchini. A nice yacht dock would
be situated near the hotel.
So distance to the north of
the bay,
lies a group of small protrusions that is similar to
Isla Mujeres, an island in
the Mexican Caribbean
.
Finally, no image, photo nor even sketch on the planet can ever match the
real-time eyeball view of this mag-
nificent bay, which seem to be glittering with "Montezuma's gold" along the cliffs at
sunrise
.
Aristarchus Area
And at last, we've arrived at the last prime real estates spot. The
Lunar and Planetary Institute stated that the
Aristarchus region is one of the most diverse and interesting areas on the Moon.
This is the site of many strange
reports of changes. In fact, Herschel reported seeing a red glow in 1783
near Aristarchus! There are strange
looking rille and craters that take on "viper-like" appearance.
Vallis Schröteri courtesy of esteemed CN member
Erika
Esteemed CN member Erika reported the snakehead is at the SE end of Vallis
Schroteri, the way the lighting played
in this area the valley almost could have extended straight through to
Herodotus. There is a section below Herodotus
(doting hero of Aristarchus perhaps?) that forked out like a snake tongue to
compliment the view
. During an
11.18 day moon
, Aristarchus was just coming into
view with the
terminator just beyond the western
rim. I was
surprised to see that the rim is much taller (165x-220x)
than
when I usually observe it during 12-day moon. The
Moon is not so static as
one may superficially believe.
Before you leave this area, please be sure to visit this remarkable
photo taken by in 1963 by Charles
Capen, the
famous planetary observer and imager (remarkable because of the technology in
1963). I wonder if "Chick" (as his
friend is fond of calling him) inspired the astronaut on the Apollo module to
take this awesome
photo of Aristarchus!
Farewell
It was very difficult to select the Seven Wonders of the Moon
.
.
Here's an image of the entire Moon
showing the location of each of the selected wonders.
Full Moon courtesy of NASA
Although these seven selections are very widely known features on the Moon, my Light Cup and I
hope you'll
agree with us when
you look at these features that they are indeed the Seven Wonders of the
Moon.
Just like
their counterpart on
Terra, you can visit them time and time again and never be bored. We
also hope that you'll
do your observing with the same meticulous care
as though you were house hunting for a
fine property
.
And
surely please report any suspicious scam
to the authorities
.
And if you don't agree with my Light and I on
the Seven Wonders of the Moon, you'd certainly agree with this
.
Ron B[ee]
ronbee@yahoo.com
Panned Candidates:
Perhaps for further investigation on your own
?
- Tycho (vs Copernicus)
- Rheita Valley (vs Straight Wall)
- Schiller vs (Clavius)
- Mare Crisium (vs Mare Serenitatis)
Suggested
Deep-Cover Espionage
The Modern Moon A Personal View, by Charles Wood
Moon Observer's Guide, by Peter Grego
Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this article are courtesy of the Consolidated Lunar Atlas.
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