Weekend promises a stellar shot of the moon
Gaze at the moon this weekend to see some marvelous views of major craters.
Bust out your scopes for this one.
(Credit: Starry Night Software)How well do you know the geography of the moon? This weekend brings a great chance for you to brush up on your lunar knowledge.
Starry Night Education points out that when the moon rises each night this weekend, we Earthlings can view a great angle of these jumbo lunar craters: Plato, Archimedes, Copernicus, Ptolemaeus, and Clavius.
The diameters of these impact craters simply astound the mind: the smallest listed here, Copernicus, ranges at 58 miles across, while Clavius stretches out to an impressive 140 miles in diameter. Can you imagine the meteor that caused such a formation? To top off the spectacle, you may also see the Rupes Recta (Straight Wall), an epic cliff to the south that stands 68 miles long and nearly a thousand feet high.
The educational group indicates that the absolutely best views of the moon (which rises at 9 p.m.) should occur when it sets to the south, mostly toward the earliest morning hours before sunrise.
(Via Space.com)
