Hitchhiker's Guide to Rukl Chart 8

Pythagoras area (Akkana)

The area just south of Pythagoras was full of little elevation changes which showed up nicely on the terminator, as a series of disconnected illuminated peaks floating above the surrounding darkness.

Mons Rumker (David North <d _at_ timocharis.com>)

The other old friend who got a special visit was the unfortunately named Rumker, a massive dome in the northern wastes of Oceanus Procellarum (Rukl page 8). Crammed over toward the limb as it is, it's often nothing more than a vague crab shape mounting an attack in the direction of Sinus Iridium. But tonight I was able to pick out intense detail of its many bumps, rolls and textures of both shape and color.

Alternately, it looks more or less like a catcher's mitt.

Akkana adds:
To me, Rumker looks more like a hand, with four fingers together and the thumb separate.

But on another occasion, it looked to me "very like a whale", complete with bubbles and ripples.

Mons Rumker (Matt Tarlach <tarlach _at_ earthlink.net>)

Mons Rumker is one of my favorite lunar sights - though it appears more interesting with larger scopes than my 70mm. Tonight all I was able to make out was a general lumpiness, and a pronounced dark spot southwest of center. With Rumker close to the terminator, I took this spot to be a low-rimmed, shadow filled crater at the limit of my resolution. But looking now in Rukl, I see he draws it as an indefinite, dark spot with no walls at all. Any other impressions of this feature?

Rumker (Russell Chmela, posted on the TAC mailing list)

Some issues ago, one of the two astronomy magazines did a historical piece on Rumker, and how some of the early observers and Selenographers (Lunar Cartographers) thought this formation was some kind of fortress city. The arrays of small domes at the end of raised channels became battlements, and the channels the outer walls and parapets. Quite a leap of conjecture for a region seen at such an oblique angle. This had started when the technique first appeared to take drawings and photos of the moon and using angled projection and angled photo copying, features could be made to look like viewed from perpendicular.

Wrinkle Ridge near Rumker (JRF <freeman _at_ netcom.com>)

3/9/98: The beautiful wrinkle ridge from Nielsen to Rumker stood out in relief, though Rumker itself still lay in shadow.