iphone x civilization beyond earth images

Almost forgot - there's a pair on the Moon! Amateur astronomer Piqui Diaz of Ezeiza, Argentina, wrote me recently about a clair-obscur effect that caught her eye while observing the Moon with her 90-mm refractor, a feature she dubs Piqui's Scissors. This is a very easy, low-magnification sight. I've faintly traced the outline of Piqui's (pronounced PEE-kee) Scissors, a delightful lunar asterism visible in the lunar northern hemisphere when the Moon is 5-6 days old. If Hesiodus whets your appetite for more, the site has predictions for 81 additional craters. For precise times, head over to the Robinson Lunar Observatory site and consult this table of sunrise-ray times, good through the year 2029. The sight is brief, lasting a couple of hours at most, but it's both dramatic and a great way to experience a lunar sunrise. When the Moon is eight days old, a sunrise ray passes through a breach in the crater's wall and fans across the shadowed floor like an open door lets light into a darkened room. One of the best known is Hesiodus (43 km). Here's a photo of the scene.Ī number of craters have narrow gaps or slumps in their walls that allow the light of the rising or setting Sun to beam into their dark, pre-sunrise interiors. Use a higher magnification to see it best - about 150x. Pitatus, with its prominent central peak, and Tycho will help in locating Hesiodus. only)ĭecember 21st starting at 1:00 UT Like a ray of sunshineĪchim Rohe of Germany captured the transient beauty of sunlight spotlighting the shadowed floor of Hesiodus in a sketch made on February 20-21, 2021, using a 10-inch Dobsonian. June 27th starting at 8:00 UT (Western U.S. viewing times (CDT) courtesy of Mary McIntyre, an Oxfordshire-based (England) amateur astronomer, astrophotographer, and Moon enthusiast. When the Sun first peeps over the terminator of the 8-to-9-day-old waxing gibbous Moon, it delicately illuminates the rims of the two largest, Clavius D and C, transforming them into a pair of eyes peeping from the crater's abysmal depths. It's so big that it encloses numerous satellite craters including the prominent quartet of Clavius D, C, N, and J. Have you ever stared into the Eyes of Clavius? With a diameter of 225 kilometers (140 miles) Clavius is the second-largest crater visible on the lunar nearside. When the crater Clavius (bottom center) is still rim-deep in shadow, sunlight turns its two largest interior craters into a pair of eyes staring from the darkness. May 27th (starting around 7:00 UT) July 25th (5:00 UT) September 22nd (4:00 UT) and November 20th (5:00 UT). To convert to EDT, subtract 4 hours 5 hours for CDT 6 hours for MDT and 7 hours for PDT): observers to see the alphabetic pair follow. To me it's an extraterrestrial version of the famous Spock salute 'live long and prosper.'īoth are visible for about four hours until the rising Sun begins to fill in the area around them. Slanted sunlight highlights two converging ridges of Mare Imbrium ejecta and the eroded rims of the craters Ukert M and N located just east of Ukert. Farther north along the terminator look for the Lunar V at the same time. It's also known as Werner X (after a nearby crater) or The Purbach Cross. The X appears when sunlight skims the rims of the adjoining craters Blanchinus, Le Caille, and Purbach at the same time their interiors are still steeped in shadow. Probably the best known are the Lunar X and Lunar V, both of which are visible at first-quarter Moon. Lunar enthusiasts call them clair-obscur effects, derived from the French words for 'light' and 'shadow.'Īround first-quarter phase, the Moon's sunrise terminator displays two letters of the alphabet - the Lunar X and and Lunar V. The continuous interplay of sunlight and shadow through its changing phases provides a myriad of opportunities to see faces, eyes, cities, alphabet letters - almost anything you might imagine. One of my favorite places to find familiarity in randomness is the Moon. Human pareidolia populated the night sky with constellations and continues to enlighten through art. The sunnier side of pattern-seeking is the simple joy of watching faces and animal forms emerge from billowy clouds on a summer afternoon. Later photos taken with better cameras clearly revealed that the 'face' was nothing more than the play of light and shadow on an eroded mesa. Limited-resolution images showed a human visage on a hilltop that some interpreted as evidence of a long-lost Martian civilization. You'll recall the Face on Mars photographed by NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft from orbit. Pareidolia - our ability to see patterns in randomness - can sometimes mislead us. NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University photo with annotations by Bob King This map locates our featured lunar clair-obscur effects.

Iphone x civilization beyond earth images