Easy To Miss Ghost Crater Stadius

[cloudsweeper]

I included this with other sightings under general observations, but thought it might be worth placing here on its own, as I was particularly pleased to see this crater and found it easy to miss but worth dwelling on.  (From 4.00am Saturday.)

On to the star of the session - Luna and the ghost crater Stadius.

The Moon looked beautiful - clear, stable, almost a hemisphere, standing on its jagged terminator like a jellyfish with the initial orientation of viewing.  x35/2deg.  Archimedes was right on the terminator, Copernicus was a little further away with a lit floor and only some shading on the western terraces.  Eratosthenes was closer to the terminator, on the southern edge of M. Imbrium.  A finger of the Apennine Mountains reached out to it from the terminator.

I increased the mag in stages to x254 and noticed fabulous surface detail between Eratosthenes and Copernicus in the form of fine lines of close craterlets in a Y pattern, giving a sort of perforation effect.  Even better, I then spotted at the southern end of this feature a very faint outline of crater Stadius - a ghostly apparition  of an old impact crater, obscured by lava flow.  Easy to miss!  Its perimeter once again showed a perforation effect.  At x318 and in moments of stability, I even noticed some fine and faint pitting in Stadius's southern floor.

An excellent session, just over two hours.  Well worth getting up for, and a great start to the day!

Doug.

[RobertI]

Great report, nicely described. 

[Alkaid]

Excellent report, going to take a look at this area next time.