Look for Crater – Schickard Moon
Published on 24 Jul 2010 at 00:00.
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Saturday 24th July 2010
Look for crater – Schickard on the Moon tonight.
Schickard is a large old crater with a diameter of 142 miles. When observing Schickard through a telescope, you will immediately notice the absence of central peaks or peak rings. You will also see that there are some large patches of dark and light material on the crater floor.
Schickard is very shallow compared to other craters of this size, only about 1 mile deep. The original crater floor probably has been flooded with lava which covered the central peaks completely. After that a thin layer of bright highland material was thrown like a blanket over the dark crater floor. This bright layer is still visible in the centre of Schickard. Near the edges of the crater (upper left and lower right) there was some additional lava flooding later on. These are the dark patches that can be seen in Schickard.
Wargentin is a very mysterious crater. It seems as if this 53 mile wide crater is filled right up to the rim, looking like a kind of plateau. Wargentin indeed is completely filled, probably with volcanic material, and covered with a layer of brighter highland material. You can see the rim of Wargentin very clearly as well as one or two wrinkled ridges on its flooded floor.
Click here for above enlarge image.
