2006-12-03

Moon Watch - Sunrise Over Crater Babbage

I'm not really a sunrise sort of guy -- I'm more into sunsets. By the time the sun starts coming up, the day is already full and in a rush. Sunsets are more relaxing.

Still, I decided to watch the sunrise today -- starting at 6 PM, ET -- and the sunrise was on the moon.

At 6 PM, 7 PM, 8 PM, 9 PM and 10 PM I took note of the changes sunrise brought to Crater Babbage, which is not far from the lunar limb, just beyond Sinus Iridium.

Here is the area at 6 PM. You can see Sinus Iridium very clearly as a dark area.





Crater Babbage is mostly a dark area, with only the southeastern (bottom on image) rim of the crater clearly visible. There is a hint of Crater Babbage A. At 6 PM, however, it is unclear whether Babbage is a crater. Babbage A might be a hill rather than a crater. Things become clearer at 7 PM.


At 7 PM (below), Babbage looks more like a crater, with the rim not quite complete, but nearly so. Babbage A is a complete crater. Crater South at 6 PM doesn't look like a crater at all, with just the eastern wall showing. Jump to 7 PM it is clearly a crater, although a shallow one.


Below is the 8 PM image. The difference between the 7 PM and 8 PM is not as great as the difference between the 6 PM and 7 PM images. Everything does continue to become clearer, but not much new is showing up.

There is a jump in the difference between the images of 8 PM and 9 PM (the 9 PM images is seen below). The entire floor of Crater Babbage is visible and the rim of that crater is just barely complete in this light.


Clouds obscured a decent image at 10 PM, but visual observation showed (through clear patches in the clouds), that the crater rim was very complete. More detail could be seen on the floor of Babbage.

No comments: