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North of Brahe

By Richard Hill  |  30 Aug 2020

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This entry is part 42 of 87 in the series Lunarcy

Center bottom we have the spectacular crater Tycho (diameter 88km) the center of the largest ray system on the Moon that completely wraps around the globe. This is two days after the terminator passed over this crater and already the sun is high enough to show the rays without washing out some of the topographic details. For orientation purposes, the large dark crater at the top is Pitatus. Just below that are two similar sized craters Gauricus (82km) on the right and Wurzelbauer (90km) and off to the right is a much smaller well defined crater with a fairly dark patchy floor, Hell (34km). To the left of Pitatus and you’ll see one of the better double walled craters on the Moon, Hesiodus A (15km) looking like a little bulls-eye target with the small central peak. The parent crater Hesiodus (44km) is above it with a small 5km central crater.

Going back to Tycho we can see one of the larger rays radiating out from the crater about 10 o’clock right off the upper left corner of the image. If you look carefully close in to Tycho you will see a fine trail of secondary crater following along one edge of that ray. This takes some good seeing to spot by eye. Off to the upper right of Tycho you can see a radial spray of fine rays out to the edge of the image. During full Moon you can see these rays wrap around the whole body even in a pair of binoculars..

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