AL – Lunar II Observation 2017-12-07

#042 Montes Agricola (A “Most Difficult” Target imho…) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montes_Agricola Below Image from Wikipedia.org Montes Agricola is an elongated range of mountains near the eastern edge of the central . It lies just to the northwest of a plateau containing the craters and . The selenographic coordinates of this range are 29.06°N 54.07°W. It continues for a distance of 160 kilometres. This range is a long, slender ridge formation that is more rugged at the northeastern end. There is also a rise at the southwest terminus of the range. The faint trace of a ray parallels the range just to the north. The 20 km gap between this range and the plateau to the south is covered by a flow of basaltic lava. There is a small near the northern part that is identified as Dorsum Niggli. This range is named after Georgius Agricola.

This target has been MOST difficult to capture due to several reasons. First, it is in a VERY bright section of the … and this moon cycle is a SUPER MOON, which does NOT help. The composite image below is the best result I have so far. This area has been imaged several times (as part of a larger area image) using the Edge 8HD, as opposed to using the wide-field 80mm. The actual image is Very Much in Focus… however we are looking at an edge corner with curvature away from the central object – thus apparent lack of focus.

The actual image captured is shown below. When imaging this series, several exposures at exposure times incrementing from .9 seconds down to .1 seconds at .1 sec increments are taken, and then .09 down through .01 in .01 increments, and then a series of .009 down through .001 seconds, which is the shortest exposure I can take.

The area that we are examining for our target is shown in the red oval. The larger area is required to line up lunar features to try and pinpoint the target.