Southern Moon

NOTES
DATE:
Saturday, September 2, 2007
TIME:
1:31 am EDT
CAMERA:
Phillips ToUcam Pro (640x480) with Baader Planetarium IR-Pass Filter
LOCATION:
Kalamazoo Nature Center - Owl Observatory
INSTRUMENT:
Tele Vue Pronto (with 2x Meade Barlow Lens) piggybacked on Meade 12"  LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain
PROCESSING:
Images acquired with IRIS.   RegiStax 4 aligned and stacked 599 of 801 images.  Wavelet filters adjusted with RegiStax.  Further enhancements made with Adobe Photoshop 7.0.
COMMENTS:
South is up in this view of the Moon.  The southern hemisphere, Earth-facing side of the Moon contains many more impact craters than the northern hemisphere.  The reason is thought to be that the crust is thicker in the southern section of the Moon.  This is also thought to be the case for the far-side of the Moon.  Most of the craters seen here likely formed roughly 4 billion years ago in what is called the heavy bombardment, the period when the last of the debris in the solar system was swept up by the planets and their moons.