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Ephemeris: 02/20/2024 – Schiller, an odd lunar crater

February 20, 2024 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, February 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 6:17, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:34. The Moon, halfway from first quarter to full, will set at 6:39 tomorrow morning.

The moon tonight is in its gibbous phase, with more than half of it being illuminated by the Sun. In binoculars or a small telescope, looking at the bottom part of the moon, near the South Pole. All the craters appear to be elongated, foreshortened actually, because the moon is spherical. But one crater stands out as being more elliptical than the rest it’s called Schiller. It’s about 111 miles long, and much less in the other direction. It still appears elongated when seen from overhead by a spacecraft. It looks like the footprint of a long narrow shoe. It is either the result of a low angle hit from the asteroid or two overlapping low angle asteroid craters. I suspect the latter, though I have no expertise in the matter.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT –5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Tonight’s (February 20, 2024) gibbous Moon showing the location of the elongated crater Schiller. Created using Stellarium and LibreOffice Draw.
An overhead view of Schiller, a very elongated crater. This view is via the Virtual Moon Atlas. The description says that the crater is 111 miles by 111 miles (179 X 179 kilometers) in size. I can believe that for the long axis, but it is definitely not round, especially compared to all the surrounding craters. It still looks like a shoe print to me.
Categories: Ephemeris Program, Observing, The Moon Tags: ,