16 THE MAITLAND MERCURY � Friday, September 20, 2013 www.maitlandmercury.com.au

MAGAZINEWeekend

That brilliant lunar photographer fromBrazil, Professor Ricardo Vaz Tolentino, isfeatured in Dr Chuck Wood’s Lunar Picture

of the Day this week.Ricardo highlighted and measured a sunken

meteorite crater in the Oceanus Procellarum, theOcean of Storms and measured it as 8km acrossbut only130 metres deep.

The crater probably formed in the Age of HeavyBombardment when asteroids, meteors andcomets rained down on the Moon around four billion years ago.

The crater was later covered by molten lava.This area is a most outstanding section of the

lunar surface. The sunken crater is midway between the so far

unexplained Gruithuisen Domes, upper right, andthe Aristarchus Plateau, lower left.

The Aristarchus Plateau is famous for the pres-ence of Ilmenite a part of the oxygen-rich glassysoils that could in the future provide lunar visitorswith their life sustaining oxygen requirements.

Note also the smaller walled craters formed bymeteorites splashing into the still plastic moltenlava in ages past.

A revealing look at the titanic forces at play.So Professor Tolentino from his rooftop obser-

vatory in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, provides a further explanation in the quest to understand ourenigmatic neighbour, our glorious Moon.

The 2013 Harvest Moon will appear tonight,full, in the skies above Maitland.

Could this be the crater Ricardo? SKYWATCHCol Maybury

CRATERS: Understanding the Moon. Image credit: Professor Ricardo Jose Vaz Tolentino

Another brilliantastro photographer isTerry Hancock fromthe Down UnderObservatory inFremont, Michigan.

Terry laments thatthis area so rich incolour is so low in hisUSA sky. It is so high inours.

His area of study isthe Lagoon Nebula M8(NGC 6523), The TrifidNebula M20 (NGC6514), Star clusterM21 and star formingregion NGC6559.

All so very close to thecentre of our homegalaxy the Milky Way.Both of these objects areintensely rich with HIIregions.

Right of centre is TheLagoon Nebula, a giantemission Nebula and HIIregion, bottom centre can

be seen the star formingregion NGC6559.

These are estimated at4000 to 6000 light yearsfrom us in the constella-tion Sagittarius.

Upper left in this imagecan be seen M20 or NGC6514 known as The TrifidNebula also in the con-stellation of Sagittarius.

M20 lies at a distance

of about 5000 lightyears from us. It is 40light years across.

This object (pic-tured) is a combinationof emission nebula (thered area), reflection nebula (the blue area)and dark nebula (thedark jagged lines withinthe Trifid Nebula).

Below left of M8 isthe Star cluster M21.

This magnificentphotograph of that tur-bulent area, an area offrenzied starmaking,

toward the centre of ourwonderful home galaxy,the Milky Way.

Terry’s area appearssurrounded by a panoplyof countless stars.

The Milky Way galaxy,our Milky Way, is home tosome 200 billion starsand is about 100,000 lightyears across.

Turbulent star forms close to galaxy centre

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