Astrophotography Adventure – Crater Gassendi

Earlier this month, there were actually a couple of clear nights in a row, so I took some photos of the same area of the Moon’s terminator on consecutive nights. The idea was to capture a crater on the terminator the first night and then the same crater one night later in order to illustrate how quickly the view changes due to the angle of the sun. As it turned, Crater Gassendi turned out to be the perfect illustration. Here are a couple of photos on night one:

Gassendi is the crater whose outline you can make out on the top left, with a peak just visible in the middle and a smaller crater that interrupts its northern (or upper) wall. The crater with the visible central peak in the top center is Balliadus and the similar but slightly large crater on the middle right is Tycho. The US lunar lander Surveyor 7 landed just north of Tycho’s northern rim back in 1968 and is still there. Here are a couple of closer images of Gassendi, still on night 1:

 

Now take a look at Gassendi, Balliadus, and Tycho the next night:

And a closer view of Gassendi:

It’s a great example of how the higher angle of sunlight flattens the features and why viewing and photographing the terminator of the Moon provide a better illustration of its spectacular features.

Photos Details:

Scope: Starblast 4.5
Camera: iPhone 6 using NightCapPro with low ISO boost on
Magnification: 100x; 10mm eyepiece with 2x Barlow