Pitatus and Gauricus

Here's another shot from the set I compiled last month. This time I've moved further south to just below Mare Nubium and north-west of Tycho. I usually favour the northern hemisphere when taking pictures, mainly because there are more maria which makes many features more prominent and easier to capture in a picture. There are a lot more craters in the south making it harder to decide on a specific target and harder to generate a picture which isn't obviously blurred around the edges.


The picture is roughly orientated correctly with Mare Nubium at the top, Pitatus the larger crater near the centre and Gauricus just below it and to the right. As suggested by nearly being a part of Mare Nubium, Pitatus is an old crater that flooded with lava at a similar time. Craters such as this have been filled via floor-fracture, meaning that they were flooded from within by lava that rose up through cracks in the crater floor. The surrounding lava flow that filled Mare Nubium has encroached upon the crater rim but not poured over it into the crater.

Gauricus has few notable features and has been heavily worn and eroded by subsequent smaller impacts. To the left of Gauricus, the shape of the crater Wurzelbauer can be seen in the shadow. Tycho is the prominent crater on the bottom edge.

As I mentioned above, the craters on the edge of the field of view make any blurring more obvious. I also think the focussing is generally a bit off since only the area around Pitatus appears anywhere near sharp.