Crater Barrow Sunrise Ray

[Talitha]

Admittedly I'm not an imager and this pic is nothing to write home about (single shot/daylight/yadda-yadda), but it's pretty neat because of something in it... a sunrise ray in Barrow.

Barrow is lower left of center in the image.. see the light 'stripe' running from 2:00 to 8:00 on the shadowed floor of the crater? That's the sunrise ray.

A sunrise ray occurs when low-angle sunlight enters a breach in a crater wall and the light pours onto the shadowed floor of the crater. Looks a bit like a headlight beam.

8" f/10 LX-10; 10mm ep (maybe 13.8 SWA?); Nikon CP4300 at full optical zoom (absolutely no idea what magnification that is ).

[Beyond_Vision]

Thats a really interesting capture Carol thanks for sharing that with us.

Regards

Kevin

[Sam]

Carol,

That's an awesome image and shows the ray very clearly - well done!!

Sam

[MrEd]

Unusual and different type of Lunar shot.

I love it...

(and wish i did it )

Great work Carol

Ed

[barkis]

I had a job seeing it at first, but once I did it became very apparent. The description of a headlight beam is very apt, as it just looks like that. You get the impression also, that the beam is illuminating the opposite wall, but I suppose that is direct sunlight.

How do you find these things Carol.? The window of opportunity must be quite narrow.

Ron.

[SteelRat]

Yup - very headlight beam. An event well caught Carol 8)

cheers

Matthew

[Dave Smith]

Excellent stuff. I would also like to know how you find out about these events.

Dave

[Talitha]

Thanks! They're interesting observational/imaging targets that only last for a while, maybe a few hours (more or less depending on latitude and libration). If anyone would like a schedule there's one available online.

At the bottom of the RLO's Lunar sunrise/sunset crater rays page there's a section named 'Articles and Links'. Click on the first one ("Master World Database for 2004- 2012 - .xls format [485k zip file] - updated 13 June 2004") to download the zip file.

It's an extensive list and to be perfectly honest I never refer to it even though it's been in my puter for 4 years. After a while, you just get to know which craters to keep an eye on.

I know stuff...

[jgs001]

Very cool shot Carol.

[Jeff RV]

Great capture And info Carol.

Wondered were i left that torch

Jeff.

[Talitha]

Thanks, John and Jeff. Aaaahhh.. torch, that's it! I'd wanted to use the term but couldn't remember it, so I said headlight beam instead.. wasn't sure anyone would know what a 'flashlight' was. (Yeah, I know.. we talk weird over here. )

[gary1968]

Nice image Carol.... :salute: I take it you had planned to try and capture this event or was it a case of right place right time?

Thanks for sharing.

Gary

[PaulG]

This is really interesting Carol, I've never heard of crater rays before.

Great capture too.

I've got to bag myself one of these one day............you know when the have passed.

Paul

[Talitha]

Thanks Gary and Paul! No, I didn't plan it.. I literally stumbled on it during my initial terminator tour (before getting down to the serious lunar observing ). Basically though, all you have to do is scan the terminator and make a point of checking the shadowed crater floors for beams of light.

Forgot to mention.. there are also sunset rays which occur when the sunlight is illuminating the Moon from its' west, between Full Moon and New Moon.