The week of January 3-9 takes us from Day 2 to Day 8. This week we will highlight the craters Peirce and Picard located in the NE quadrant of the Field Map and viewable on Wednesday evening.
Peirce & Picard: [NE/H15] The two largest intact craters on Mare Crisium are Peirce and Picard. They are only about 12 miles in diameter by 1 mile deep and will require 75x – 100x to see them. They are located on a more-or-less north-south line about 30 miles in from the western shore of Crisium (Peirce is the northernmost). The lava that covered Crisium stopped flowing before these craters formed. You should easily be able to spot Swift, a small seven-mile crater just eight miles to the north of Peirce.
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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
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