Copernicus

It doesn't take many lunar observing sessions before ending up with a picture of Copernicus. Here's a picture I took during an observing session in March. It was a near full moon so the surface is looking rather flat.


I got the webcam orientation a bit wonky so north is roughly pointing towards 4 o-clock. Copernicus is a relatively new crater being around 800 million years old. Typical of many Copernican period craters it has a prominent ray system and the crater hasn't been flooded with lava - some of the features inside the crater are obvious even with this little shadow.

The relatively bright crater in the bottom-right corner is Pytheas, a crater of similar age to Copernicus and located in the southern part of Mare Imbrium. To the right of Copernicus in this picture is the mountain range Montes Carpatus which is 2-3 billion years older than the two craters just mentioned.

The two medium-sized craters situated at 11 o'clock are Reinhold and Reinhold B, both of which are much older craters than Copernicus.

It's a shame I didn't pick a slightly shifted field of view - a little more towards the top-right would have given a better view of Montes Carpatus, but just out of shot in the bottom-left is Eratosthenes which would have made a great target alongside Copernicus. Maybe next time.