Nectaris Basin
Three billion, eight hundred million years ago the Moon was rocked by a colossal collision with an asteroid. That impact changed the face of the moon. A vast 860 km wide basin was blasted into the Moon; its borders were defined by a ring of mountains that were raised in an instant. Large chunks were hurtled outward from the center of the impact, many forming new craters of their own, others gouging radial valleys as they bounded across the lunar surface. A wash of smaller debris buried surrounding surface features and filled the floors of older craters. The center of that impact slowly filled back with basalt and became what we now know as Mare Nectaris. This event marked the end of the Moon’s formative era and the beginning of another, the Nectarian Era.
This is a view of the Nectaris Basin today. Many of the once-vivid features of the basin have been obliterated in turn by subsequent impact events. A portion of the 860 km wide ring of mountains can be seen in the lower left portion of this image, starting at the left center margin and arcing down and to the right, ending at Piccolomini Crater. This is the Rupes Altai, a scarp or arc of cliffs, named after the Altai Mountains of Central Asia. The darker, smoother, circular lava plain in the center of this image is Mare Nectaris. Mare Nectaris marks ground zero of the massive Nectaris Impact Event.
340 video frames captured with SharpCap 3.1. Video frames were stacked into a single image with AutoStakkert!3 software, 3x drizzle. Wavelets applied in Registax 6. Post-processing and cropping in Photoshop CC 2018.
Explore Scientific ED 80 APO refractor, 480mm focal length, f/6
Explore Scientific 3x Focal Extender
Celestron Advanced VX mount
Explore Scientific 3x Barlow
ZWO ASI 290MM camera (monochrome)
Nectaris Basin
Three billion, eight hundred million years ago the Moon was rocked by a colossal collision with an asteroid. That impact changed the face of the moon. A vast 860 km wide basin was blasted into the Moon; its borders were defined by a ring of mountains that were raised in an instant. Large chunks were hurtled outward from the center of the impact, many forming new craters of their own, others gouging radial valleys as they bounded across the lunar surface. A wash of smaller debris buried surrounding surface features and filled the floors of older craters. The center of that impact slowly filled back with basalt and became what we now know as Mare Nectaris. This event marked the end of the Moon’s formative era and the beginning of another, the Nectarian Era.
This is a view of the Nectaris Basin today. Many of the once-vivid features of the basin have been obliterated in turn by subsequent impact events. A portion of the 860 km wide ring of mountains can be seen in the lower left portion of this image, starting at the left center margin and arcing down and to the right, ending at Piccolomini Crater. This is the Rupes Altai, a scarp or arc of cliffs, named after the Altai Mountains of Central Asia. The darker, smoother, circular lava plain in the center of this image is Mare Nectaris. Mare Nectaris marks ground zero of the massive Nectaris Impact Event.
340 video frames captured with SharpCap 3.1. Video frames were stacked into a single image with AutoStakkert!3 software, 3x drizzle. Wavelets applied in Registax 6. Post-processing and cropping in Photoshop CC 2018.
Explore Scientific ED 80 APO refractor, 480mm focal length, f/6
Explore Scientific 3x Focal Extender
Celestron Advanced VX mount
Explore Scientific 3x Barlow
ZWO ASI 290MM camera (monochrome)