Hitchhiker's Guide to Rukl Chart 42

Robin Casady's CCD image of Parry.

Bonpland:

Fra Mauro:

Parry: (JRF <freeman _at_ netcom.com>)

This trio of walled plains with broken-down walls is crossed by several clefts and rilles. Apollo 14 landed a few Km north of the north wall of Fra Mauro.

Fra Mauro (David North <d _at_ timocharis.com>)

Just past morning twilight, it was perfectly lit (and needs to be, it's so flattened and beat up). What is often a disappointing blur was ideally placed tonight.

The rich fractured rilles were all in evidence. Particularly well defined and interesting were the points where rills sapped the walls into Parry and Bonpland, and even the northern extension of the rimae showed well. In the floor of Fra Mo, there are countless little craters that normally don't show up, but were clear tonight -- literally dozens, creating a sort of dimpled terrain like orange peel paint with glistening edges. With the drifty seeing, these would pop in and out like some kind of movie Dali might have made...

Illumination was perfect to show the "island" that defines Fram's northeast side, contributing to the somewhat mysterious "atmosphere" of the area.

Fra Mauro (...Akkana)

Fra Mauro and its two nearby craters are easily identified because they look like Mickey Mouse.

Mare Cognitum (JRF <freeman _at_ netcom.com>)

This is one of the best-explored areas of the Moon; two Apollo spacecraft and one each Surveyor, Ranger, and Luna probe descended here.

Montes Riphaeus Domes (David North <d _at_ timocharis.com>)

There are some nicely formed domes on both sides of Montes Riphaeus, along with a curiously sharp portion of a wrinkle ridge near Eppinger that has more than once fooled me into thinking, for a moment, that I've spotted a rille.

Montes Riphaeus area (Akkana)

An interesting wedge-shaped wrinkle ridge heads southeast of Montes Riphaeus nearly to Eppinger. It stands out as a fan of dark color against the lighter floor of Mare Cogitum. The feature is faintly shown on Rukl chart 42, but is not named.