daily pictures of Earth's moon

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Copyright: Lunar Picture of the Day

LPOD has moved to a new site: http://LPOD.wikispaces.com - come visit and change your bookmark to this new URL!Chuck

LPOD has moved to a new site: http://LPOD.wikispaces.com - come visit and change your bookmark to this new URL!Thanks, Chuck

image by Alan FriedmanHo hum, another exquisite image of Sinus Iridum. I want to use it for LPOD so I’ll have to find something new to say… Wait, what is that thin line near top right between the west end of the Straight Range and the isolated peak? A little Photoshop unsharp mask and [...]

Visit LPOD at a temporary home until I can repair the normal LPOD software.

image from JAXA, Japan, and Lunar Orbiter IV added by C. WoodSelene and the other lunar orbiters will do much more than capture images of the Moon’s surface. Measurements to be made include topography, chemical and mineral compositions, temperature, magnetism and gravity. Data from each of the sensors requires more processing and calibration than do [...]

image by K.C. Pau, Hong Kong Comparative planetology is a powerful approach to understanding processes on different worlds. It has been used since early observers compared lunar features to landforms on Earth. The first stage of such a comparison is simply noticing similarities in morphology. Here KC points out the curved shores of a small [...]

image by Paolo R. Lazzarotti, Massa, Italy.Deslandres has been featured on LPOD a number of times, and each new image reveals something new. This piece of a larger image by Paolo has a tonal balance that shows different floor characteristics. The southern part of the floor is lighter hued, more cratered and slightly more [...]

image by Rogelio Bernal Andreo, Sunnyvale, CaliforniaA ring of light, with traces of a rainbow’s color, seems a magical sight, but its only bending of Moonlight by ice in cirrus clouds. Mars, below, and Capella, just inside the left ring, are like dots that mark the time on a cosmic clockface. And the remarkable thing [...]

image by Oliver PettenpaulMare Humorum and Orientale are such compelling targets that the region between is often overlooked. Oliver has resisted that urge and captured a wonderful image of this complex area. The jumbled texture between the craters is ejecta from the formation of various basins, with that from the Humorum Basin being buried by [...]

image by K.C. Pau, Hong Kong Very near the terminator the grazing Sun magnifies small differences in lunar topography to reveal subtle features we hardly know. The thing that jumped out immediately to me was the broad very low dome near the middle of Agatharchides at the bottom of the image. Another interesting feature at [...]

image from John Komninos, Athens, GreeceNo one ever knew whether it was a giant asteroid that struck the farside of the Moon, or simply a huge electrical discharge from a global warming enhanced summer thunderstorm. Fortunately, a Greek photographer happened to catch the first moment of the Moon’s destruction, and within minutes the two [...]

both images from Lunar Orbiter IV Yesterday’s LPOD featured a concentric crater and possible dome that were remarkable for being in the highlands. The crater, Pontanus E, is just to the left of the “E” near the center of today’s top image, and is also seen in high resolution in the lower image. The origin [...]

image by Wes HigginsThe lunar highlands are boring. True or false? There is some truth to that statement because of the sameness of many of the craters. But there are mysteries and gems to stumble upon, such as two in this marvelous image - do you see them yet? This is part of the Great [...]

image by Mario Weigand, Offenbach am Main, GermanyLook what I found in the LPOD Photo Gallery! Mario Weigand recently added five high Sun images including this fascinating one of the 14 km wide crater Brayley in far western Mare Imbrium. I have used an unsharp mask filter in PhotoShop to heighten the contrast to better [...]

image by Chris Kotsiopoulos and Anthony Ayiomamitis, Athens, GreeceHappy 2008! Happy 4th birthday for LPOD! It was January 1, 2004, that an image by Anthony Ayiomamitis launched Lunar Photo of the Day, an audacious attempt to see if there were enough great images - and things to say about them - to support a daily [...]

image by Christian Arsidi, Vernouillet, France; north approximately to right.Arched like a rainbow, the Jura Mountains halfway encircles Sinus Iridum. Christian’s extreme closeup focuses attention on the mare-covered floor showing a few mare ridges and scattered small craters. My strong enhancement of the floor (small image below with artifacts on right edge) brings out albedo [...]

image by Jérôme Grenier, Paris, FranceLongomontanus has two contrasting landforms that are only accidentally related to the crater itself. First is the relatively smooth material that floors the crater. Its pacity of moderate diameter impact craters suggests an age considerably younger than the crater rim. This smooth material apparently flowed, for it embayed the rims [...]

image by Bart Declercq, Zottegem, BelgiumLike-sized, nearby craters invite comparisons. Look at this triplet and see what you can say about the craters’ morphologies (the way they look) and their relative ages. Come back to finish reading when you’ve studied them……OK, from the top (north) these three are Zucchius, Bettinus and Kircher, and they have [...]

image by Alexandre Csutoros, Québriac, France; north upMany amateur and professional astronomers have spent their lives fixated on a tiny red dot. It is hard to understand, with the richness of the Moon close at hand, how Mars could have allured so many when, as Alexandre’s image demonstrates, its telescopic appearance is smaller than an [...]

image by Paco Bellido, SpainI was driving to my parents home on Christmas Eve when I noticed a big moon rising on the horizon. My wife stopped the car and I took this picture of the rising moon by the castle of Montilla in Cordoba province, Spain. Taken with a Canon 350D camera and a [...]

image by Giorgio Mengoli, Modena, ITALYThis is a repeat of the June 17, 2004 LPOD.Some lunar backwaters are pretty interesting. Palus Epidemiarum is a marshy region squeezed behind both Mare Humorum and Mare Nubium. To be lava covered it must have been a depression, but there is no convincing evidence for a large crater or [...]

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image by Christian Arsidi, Vernouillet, FranceReading a lunar scene means recognizing each feature, interpreting its origin and determining its relative age. The oldest feature here is the rough terrain at upper left - from a wider view, it could be a relict of the rim of the Nubium Basin. The Mare Nubium lavas fill the [...]

Lunar Orbiter I-116 image from LPI Lunar Orbiter Photo Gallery. None of the nations between Greece and Japan are plotted.Of the 1568 named craters in the IAU list of lunar nomenclature, 72% are named for people from just 7 countries. This results from the history of lunar mapping and exploration. 230 craters are named for [...]

Lunar Orbiter V-177M image from LPI Lunar Orbiter Photo GalleryFor decades I have wondered how mare lava got onto the southernmost floor of Gassendi. Like Fracastorius, Gassendi was formed on a tilted basin floor. Mare Nectaris overflowed the low rim of Fracastorius, leaving a lava-filled breached crater. At Humorum, the flooding did not quite overtop [...]