Hitchhiker's Guide to Rukl Chart 22

Apennine Mountains (JRF <freeman _at_ netcom.com>)

The Apennines are the southeastern rim of the great Imbrium Impact Basin. They slope steeply toward Mare Imbrium, shallowly toward Mare Vaporum. A variety of rilles run parallel to the northern Apennines, just toward Mare Imbrium of the mountains themselves. These include Rima Bradley, the Rimae Fresnel, and Rima Hadley.

Thierry Legault's CCD image of the Montes Apenninus, Rima Hadley and Mare Vaporum.

Rima Hadley (JRF <freeman _at_ netcom.com>)

Hadley Rille is not marked as such on Rukl's chart; it passes closely adjacent to Hadley crater, running in a zigzag northeast / southwest direction, but trends back westward near Mount Hadley. Apollo 15 landed close by its eastern side, between the greatest mass of Mount Hadley and the lesser promentory immediately southwest. The peaks and at least one small craterlet at the base of the smaller promentory are recognizable both in the view of a modest amateur telescope and on photographs taken from the Lunar surface by astronauts.

The region of Hadley Rille is one of my favorite parts of the Moon. Apollo 15 landed by the eastern extremity of this sinuous, collapsed tunnel made by giant, extinct, Moon gophers (well, that's as good an explanation as any), and well I remember the live video from the Moon's surface: The earlier Apollo landing sites had been relatively flat at the scale of stuff out on the horizon, but this southeastern corner of Palus Putredinis ("Houston, this is Putridity Base..." -- well, not quite) featured some spectacular up-and-down real estate, which awestruck earthbound viewers were privileged to enjoy vicariously from the perspective of a gawking tourist.

On this night at Lick I could again visit and clearly identify many of the sites on another world that I had long ago seen in real time, close up, from a camera on the Moon's surface. The rille itself stood out clearly, all the way from its origin to the southwest, past the Apollo 15 site, then northwest to the boundary of the flat land beyond the mountains. Hadley C was an easy small crater, as were the mountain masses Hadley and Hadley Delta. I looked for the small crater which bridges the rille at the north end of Hadley Delta, but it was beyond the resolution limit of the five-inch. (If memory serves, I have seen it in my Celestron 14.) The great, unstated lie of astronomy, which many of us unconsciously still accept, even today, is that "down here" is somehow different from "out there". Views and memories such as these firmly establish it as a falsehood. It ain't so, it never was, and it never will be.

Hadley Rille (Steve Coe <scoeandlross _at_ sprintmail.com>)

Hadley Rille was quite prominent, an alternating light and dark line on the floor of Mare Imbrium that was parallel to the Apennine Mountains. The "elbow" crater where Hadley rille bends abruptly was easy to see, even at 150X and appears to be a fresh, steep-walled crater.

Mount Hadley showed off much detail, including two obvious mounds on the east side of the peak and several light areas on the mountain were easily seen at 250X.

It is a truly stunning observing experience to realize that you are viewing an area of the Moon where astronauts have explored (Apollo 15).

Hadley Rille (David W. Knisely <dk84538 _at_ navix.net>)

I always like to look at the rill and try to see the the tiny crater known as "Hadley C" by the astronauts (takes a ten or 12 inch usually). On a really good night, it is visible where the rill butts up against the large peak just south of where they landed. Now, look where Apollo's 15, 12, and 14 landed, and see how much detail you can find. One of the two small craters between which Apollo 15 touched down is about a mile across, and is visible in my scope. I recall standing on the lip of Meteor crater in Arizona, and remembering this, since Meteor crater is about the same size as the one I picked up with my scope at the Descartes highland landing site.

Apollo 15 site (Randy Muller <71172.1234 _at_ compuserve.com>)

I remember the TV commentators remarking 25 years ago about some of the problems posed by the Apollo 15 landing. Normally, the lunar module would fly in backwards, face down to its landing site. This time, they flew in face up, because mission controllers thought the view of the lunar mountains rushing beneath the astronauts at very close range would cause them to freak out.

The terrain in this area is extremely rugged, then plunges to the flat floor of the Putrid Marsh. This was a very interesting area, and I spent lots of time here.

Archimedes (JRF <freeman _at_ netcom.com>)

This prominent flooded crater, with terraced interior walls, is a "landmark" feature, easily recognized and useful for orientation. A system of rilles winds through and near the rough terrain to the south.

Rimae Archimedes (Randy Muller <71172.1234 _at_ compuserve.com>)

Apparently flowing from a large spur in the crater wall, some of Rimae Archimedes were visible as meandering rivers from the Archimedes 'delta'.

See also chart 12 for more discussion of Archimedes.

Archimedes Ray (Bill Arnett)

Early morning of 7/27/97: As soon as Luna rose above the trees, I noticed a nice shadow show on the floor of the crater Archimedes. (Archimedes is just east (lunar) of Dave North's favorite crater, Timocharis :) See chart 21 for a picture of Archimedes and Timocharis. As the Sun sank lower, the shadows filled Archimedes except for a bright ray which took about 2 hours to fade. For a while, Archimedes looked just like a letter theta. Then the ray faded into a tiny dash and disappeared. It takes a long time for these events to play out on the Moon, since it rotates so slowly (compared to Earth). At the end, I was using averted vision to hold the last tiny bit of it. Averted vision on the Moon -- who woulda thunk it?

Rima Conon (David North <d _at_ timocharis.com>)

Rima Conon is actually very easy, and looks quite a bit like a simple riverbed running from the base of the mountains south of the crater of the same name. The strange thing is, it is possible to trace a line running from Rima Bradley through the gap in the Apennines south of Mt. Bradley and down the slope to Rima Conon. Maybe a trick of the light, but the path was *very* obvious, and I can't help but wonder if the gap and the two rilles are somehow part of the same process. That the rilles seem to cut through the rubble presents difficulties, but no more than the same sort of effect in Rima Oppolzer and it's distinct impression of joining up with Rima Flammarion in some fashion, through mountains.

Then again, how does one get an Alpine Valley?