Boston moon

I took the picture on the left in August 1996 from the rooftop observatory at Boston University. I got into astrophotography late in my undergraduate studies and thankfully had great teachers in the observatory curator and a fellow student. This photo was taken the old fashioned way, with chemical film that actually had to be developed. I used an old shutter camera mounted on an even older refractor telescope with a 6.5 inch primary lens (see the telescope above). Most photography of the moon requires only a 1/35 second exposure, the same as typical everyday photography. There are some great lunar features captured in this photo that are worth pointing out. The well defined crater at the top right with the central peak is Crater Theophilus, about 60 miles across. The central peak was formed when the lunar crust, punched in by the impactor, "rebounded". Theophilus has taken a bite out of Crater Cyrillus, just to the left. The crater down and to the left of Cyrillus is Catharina, which has two smaller craters inside it. The relatively smooth area to the right of the 3 main craters is Mare Nectaris, a large impact region that filled with magma following a violent impact. The mare regions are some of the youngest regions on the moon (a couple billion years old) and this is why they show fewer craters. Notice Crater Fracastorius just beneath Nectaris that is filled with mare material. The mare poured over the crater rim and filled it in. I could go on for pages describing things in this image, but I'll stop here. Whenever I get a telescope I fully intend to get back into astrophotography, and I particularly look forward to using digital cameras.