The week of June 16-22 takes us from Day 21 to Day 27. This week we will highlight the moon crater Clavius, visible on Tuesday night close to the terminator.
Clavius: [SW/Q8] Sunset over Clavius is something that you don’t want to miss! The moon crater is so large (140 miles) that the curvature of the Moon pushes the floor’s central regions into the sunlight first, and the shadows will reveal a floor that is strewn with craterlets.
There is a delightful arc of small craters, artistically and sequentially arranged in order of size, which begins at Rutherfurd, a 34-mile crater just inside the southeast rim, arcs northward and then diminishes toward the west. While the Sun angle is low over Clavius, look for several ridges that extend like fingers northward from Rutherfurd.
The origin of these ridges remains a mystery. Revisit Clavius often. You will always see something that you missed previously.
Ever since I saw the movie 2001 in the late 60s, Clavius has had a fascination for me. It was here that the mysterious black monolith was buried for a distantly anticipated race of intelligent hominids to discover, and it was from here that the voyage to Jupiter was launched (2001 was, after all, in the distant future at that time).
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It is highly recommended that you get a copy of Sky and Telescope’s Field Map of the Moon, the very finest Moon map available for use at the telescope. It is available for $10.95 at www.skyandtelescope.com and on Amazon. All features mentioned in this blog will be keyed to the grid on the Field Map and will look like this: Plato: [NW/D9]
Credits:
Courtesy of Gray Photography of Corpus Christi, Texas
Lunar photos: NASA / USGS / BMDO / LROC / ASU / DLR / LOLA / Moon Globe. Used by permission
