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Moon Observation

Muhammed Syed
216566309
NATS 1530
July 15th 2022
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1. Record the date and time of the Moon images you are provided. (1 mark)

06/06/2022 7:25 pm (was provided images through email.

2. Determine what the date of the last New Moon was prior to your Observing Session. (1 mark)

31/05/2022

3. How “old” was the Moon (a number of days since the previous new Moon) on the date of your Observing session and

what was its lunar phase? (1 mark)

The moon was six days 8 days old since the previous new moon observation. The moon was in first quarter of lunar phase.

4. Print your (PDF) images of the Moon sent to you following your Observing session. (I recommend to use a “Landscape”

printing option.) Alternately to printing, use a program that will allow you to “mark up” the images. From your CCD

images, identify and name three natural features. Mark the relocations on your CCD images. These can be mountains,

craters, seas, etc. At least one of these features must be a crater. You will need to research lunar maps and features. (3

mark)

3 natural features

Mons Penck mountain

Hertzsprung crater

Mare Nectaris sea

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(Surface Properties of the Moon, 2019)

Mons Penck mountain

Hertzsprung crater

Mare Nectaris sea

apollo
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Mare Nectaris sea

Hertzsprung crater
Mons Penck mountain
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5. Name and identify where on your image one spacecraft mission from any nation resides. This can include a controlled

landing or a crash site. Again, research will be required to identify such a location. (1 mark)

Where spacecraft mission for any nation resides

Apollo 11 moon landing site

6. Once identified, briefly summarize (a couple of sentences each) the pertinent information about all four features such

as their size, formation, date of impact, etc. (4 mark)

Active moon volcanoes- These are moon frosts that gradually accumulate. They happen between 5 and 10 meters, or 33 feet,

below the surface. Moon lava oozes onto the moon crust, leaving behind various patterns on the surface despite being cold and

dead.

Mare Nectaris sea-A basin called Mare Nectaris can be found west of Mare Fecunditatis and south of Mare Tranquillitatis. It

has a roughly 360-kilometer diameter. The majority of this lunar mare's floor is flat and covered in craterlets. A brilliant stripe

that extends diagonally from the southwest to the northeast is made by a dazzling ray from the eye-catching, 88 km wide crater

Tycho.

Mons Penck mountain- According to the selenographic coordinates, it is located at 10.0 degrees south and 21.6 degrees of the

east. It has a base diameter of 30 km and a height of more than 4 km (13,000 ft).
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Hertzsprung crater- It is a large lunar crater located on the moon's far side, far from its western side. With a growing

excavation model, the depth is between 10 and 50 kilometers, 570 km in diameter for its main ring and 270 km for its inner

ring, has two noticeable rings. It is situated at the moon's highest area (Surface Properties of the Moon, 2019)

7. Mark on both the CCD images the cardinal directions (North, South, etc.) (1 mark)

North
west

East

South
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East

South
North

West
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8. Measure carefully in millimeters your identified crater from 4 above. Knowing its true size in kilometers, determine the

scale of your image in kilometers per millimeter. Show your working. (2 mark)

Measured crater size is 150 millimeters.

So, if its known diameter = 570km

Then, scale = 570/150 = 3.8

Therefore, 1mm = 3.8 km

(Surface Properties of the Moon, 2019)

9. Look up the average diameter of the Moon in kilometers. With your scale from 8 above, what would be the diameter of

a lunar image in millimeters? (2 mark)

The diameter of the moon = 3,474.8 km (Horner, 2019)

From the scale above, 1mm = 3.8 km

The diameter of the lunar image in mm will be;

3,474.8 km/3.8km X 1 mm = 914.421 mm

10. Inspect each of your two images. Decide where the least and the most heavily cratered sections on the images are

located. Draw two, 5 cm boxes encompassing these two sections being sure not to include any portion of the terminator
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or limb. Carefully count the total number of craters (ALL sizes) within each of the boxes and record the numbers. (2

mark)

In comparison to the second image, which has 36 craters on the highly cratered part and a total of 8 craters on the low cratered

area, the first image totals 21 craters on the highly cratered section and 11 craters on the low cratered section.

11. What does the difference in the number of craters in each box suggest to you? Explain your reasoning. (2 mark)

Some areas of the moon have more craters than others. This is due to the near side of the moon having a much thinner crust,

which allows the nearby volcanoes to erupt and fill up the existing crater basins. Additionally, there isn't much water in those

areas, making them vulnerable to erosion, which leads to very few craters forming and remaining there.
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References

Horner, J. (2019, July 19). How big is moon and how far is it? Let’s put facts into perspective. Business Standard India.

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/how-big-is-put-moon-and-how-far-it-is-let-s-put-facts-into-

perspective-119071900192_1.html

Surface Properties of the Moon. (2019). Rochester.edu. http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~blackman/ast104/moon_surface.html