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Figure 1. Crescent moon with CCD in a wide-angle configuration with a 10-inch telescope. The moon's age is 5.4 days, and is 30% illuminated.  The moon is 248,760 miles from earth and tt's apparent diameter is 30 'arc.  Northeast is upper-left. [10-inch Meade LX200 f/6.3, focal reducer yielding f/4.7, image scale was 1.66 "arc/pixel before resizing 80%, blue filter, 0.001 second exposure, MaxIm DL processing consisting of digital development (DDfm) in order to achieve a more even brighness between limb and terminator; 2003.03.08/09, Hereford, AZ residence]

Figure 2.  Zoom factor 4.7 of above image, showing middle latitude terminator where one of the large craters has a central peak. The crater is called Theophilus, is 65 miles across, and actually has two peaks, 5900 and 7500 feet above the crater floor (which is 22,300 feet below the crater rim).  Extensive processing has led to impression of better resolution than is present in the original image (MaxIm DL's Kfm, Ds, Ds, Kg, Ds, Fle, Fle, Rs.3).  The resolution of this image is 3.8 "arc, or 1.9 miles.

Figure 3.  Zoom factor 3.0 the original Fig. 1 image, showing a northern mare region with a rille going north/south. Rilles can only be seen under low sun angle lighting conditions.  Because of the processing requried to "bring out" the rille the terminator appears to be fatrther to the left in this image compared with the original. 

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This site opened:  March 8, 2003.  Last Update:  March 8, 2003