{ Practical astronomy | Astronomy | The Moon
  | The physical Moon | The Lunar 100 }

Lunar #16: Petavius

Petavius is a large crater of 177 km diameter toward the southeastern limb of the Moon. With Langrenus, Vendelinus and Furnerius there is a quartet of such large craters that appear at the same time on the thin lunar crescent not long after New Moon. (The image is taken at the opposite phase, after Full Moon, when the shadow encroaches on the area. Of the Rimae Petavius, within the crater floor, the radial rima to the West is the easiest to recognise. The floor is generally not flat, the walls seem shallow, but have pronounced terraces. The central mountain range is extended, Petavius A (6 km) is to its South.

Images:

1. The area imaged on 2022-10-12, stacked from about 650 video frames taken with a Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector of D = 200 mm and f = 3500 mm and Canon EOS 600Dα camera. Wavelet sharpening. The phase was −94% (a few days after Full Moon).