At night the moon provides an opportunity to observe a changing and bright configuration on its surface - Proclus. A crater with a diameter of 28 km and a depth of 2400 meters Proclus crater will appear on the line of light west of the mountainous ridge of Mara Chrysium
Tammy Plotner and Jeff Barber, Universe Today
Today is Gerardos Maractor's 494th birthday. Mercator, born in 1512, was a famous cartographer who showed great courage. His time was very difficult for astronomy and astronomers. Despite imprisonment and threats of torture and even death for his "beliefs", Mercator continued to plan a globe of the earth in 1541 and of the heavens ten years later. One digit within a larger digit - and all without the complexities that Ptolemy saw in his mind's eye more than a thousand years before him.
At night the moon provides an opportunity to observe a changing and bright configuration on its surface - Proclus. A crater with a diameter of 28 km and a depth of 2400 meters Proclus crater will appear on the line of light west of the mountainous ridge of Mark Chrysium. Depending on the observation time, it will be possible to see it shaded in about two-thirds of its surface, but the rest of the crater will shine brightly. Proclus has a strong albedo (reflectivity) of about 16%. Rare ability and stronger than most formations on the moon. In the coming nights the two rays from the crater will expand and lengthen and they will continue for a distance of 320 km north and south.
The moon passes by the Pleiades. This is an opportunity to observe the compact open cluster NGC 2301. This cluster lies two finger widths away from the visible double star Delta Monocrus. The cluster, whose magnitude is 6, is seen in small binoculars as a blurry spot divided by a line of stars that are barely on the threshold of vision. Telescopes will already reveal about half a dozen bright stars and several tangles of fainter stars.
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