[meteorite-list] Re: SMART-1's impact

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi, Rob, List


    The Moon being down at my location (and it being
too cloudy when it was up), I'm guessing (disclaimer).
I had a terminator map drawn up for the time of the
impact (four hours too early), but the lunar terminator
just strolls along, taking 14 days to cross the Moon, so
I doubt it's moved more than 12 miles or so in 4 hours!
    The only northern hemisphere circular feature intersected
by the terminator is J. Herschel (west and a little north of
Plato, on the northern edge of Mare Frigoris).
    It's roughly 90 miles across (156 km), a disintegrated
walled plain with a cratered south and southeast wall and
a broken, mountainous northwestern wall with a "lofty"
(H. P. Wilkin's term) mountain on its western border.
    For quick identification, it's about 25% bigger than
Plato, and most of its area is in the "dark." Look at this
terminator map on-line (also drawn for the earlier time):
http://media.skytonight.com/images/SMART-1+VMA_L.jpg
    J. Herschel is the ring just above and left of the green
word MARE in Mare Frigoris.


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com>
To: "MexicoDoug" <MexicoDoug at aim.com>; "Sterling K. Webb " 
<sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>; <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 11:29 PM
Subject: SMART-1's impact


> At the moment, weather looks promising here in southern California for
> viewing the SMART-1 impact on the Moon at 10:43 pm PDT (Saturday night).
> Btw, what crater rim is that that's lit up in the northern hemisphere
> east of the terminator?  Very interesting site right now (9:30pm PDT)
> with the semicircle of bright light extending into the lunar darkside.
>
> --Rob
>
>
>