Reiner Gamma: A Lunar Swirl

[John]

Really lovely moon tonight

Wonderful detail showing with my 5.1" triplet refractor and really high powers are delivering !.

One feature that is showing really well tonight is the interesting bright oval / kite shaped marking with a darker centre and associated swirls called Reiner Gamma. It lies south of the Marius Hills llunar dome field and near it's namesake crater Reiner. The nature of this feature seems to have eluded us until quite recently and there are doubts even now. It's categorised as a lunar swirl and apprarently Reiner Gamma is one of the best exeamples to observe.

Here is NASA's take on it using LRO images:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc-reinergamma-20100629.html

And here is a rather nice flyby of the feature, again by the LRO:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AReiner_Gamma_vid.webm

Fascinating feature IMHO

Back to the eyepiece .....

[Mark at Beaufort]

John I think we are observing the same objects. Just posted a similar report.