This is my closeup photograph of the Moon. I realize I already had this image posted but, I decided to write a little more about our Moon. This photo was taken with a different technique than most of my other photos. I took this with my Meade 8" Telescope but, rather than using my Canon DSLR I used a normal computer webcam. If you have seen my photo of Saturn on my blog here it was taken with the same technique. I used something called a Barlow lens which in essence doubles the image size. Then I inserted the webcam into the Barlow lens and began taking an actual video of the Moon. Then with a program called Registax it destructed the video into single frames and stacked them one on top of another to make a better looking photo. I then sharpened the photo with a program called GIMP.
   Now in this photo is the Crater Theophilus, which is located in sector E-6 on the Moon. This Crater is the one at right with a spot in the center. If you notice the left side of the image along the dark line is very rough. Then to the right it is smooth with very few craters. The area to the left has been beaten over time with alot of Meteors and possibly Comets. However the smooth area to the right is called Mare Nectaris which is Latin for Sea of Nectar. The Mare when seen by Galileo was thought to be a Sea hence the name and Galileo believed it was a sea of water. He was not far off it is a Sea, of frozen Lava. In the Moons early years like all of the other solid "Terrestrial Planets" the Moon was molten like lava from it's formation and had volcanoes. Then over time the Lava basically ran out and it froze on the surface because of the intense cold in space. What alot of people do not know is the Temperature on the Moon in the sunlight can be 224 degrees Fahrenheit, and on the side where it is shaded or inside the deeper craters on the poles can get as cold as -307 degrees Fahrenheit.

   In the photo above there is an arrow pointing right to the landing site of Apollo 16. The arrow pointing down is the landing site of Apollo 11. Just above this photo is a area called the Mare Tranquillitatis or Sea of Tranquility. Which is where the final Apollo mission landed also where the Lunar Rover was left to film them leaving the surface. To back up a little the Moon has no atmosphere and has only 17% the gravity that we have here on Earth. So if you weighed 100kg (220 lbs.)on the Earth, on the Moon you would only weigh 17kg (37.5lbs.). If on Earth you could jump 30cm (about 1 ft.) you could jump 2 meters (6.5 ft.) on the Moon. The Moon is what we call Tidally Locked which as most people can see means the Moon only shows one face to the Earth. The Moon is about 240,000 miles from Earth. This all added together with the size of the Moon, is what gives us our tides. Another note that people don't know or realize is, we not only have tides in our oceans but, the land has tidal effects as well. It is not as much for us to realize it because we are standing on the solid ground, but it actually pulls solid Earth up by almost a foot twice a day!

 

   The photograph above shows the "Far Side" of the moon. A common myth that alot of people hear about the Moon is the "Dark Side". That's like I said a myth, the Moon does rotate (spins) about it's axis. The Rotation period of the Moon equals it's Revolution around the Earth. So to put it a little easier to understand, the Moon's Far Side is actually illuminated. When we see the moon half lit here the other half of the far side is lit as well. The reason you see so many craters on this side more than the other is because it is tidally locked. So any Meteors that come in will hit the far side because it's facing away from earth and toward space. This side of the Moon was not seen until 1959 by the Soviets with the Luna 3 spacecraft. It was seen with human eyes first by the Apollo 8 astronauts. We currently have two satellites orbiting the Moon and are still studying it today.