Sunrise over Mare Humorum, Gassendi, and Letronne

The images below were obtained on 24-25 September 2004 Pacific Daylight Time at prime focus of my Takahashi FS-102 with a 2.5x barlow lens using a Philips ToUcam Pro with an IR blocking filter. The exposure time was 1/25 second with about 30% gain. The imaging session was from about 9:15pm to 2:40am at Hidden Hills Observatory, the dark sky site of the Tri-Valley Stargazers. For the Gassendi/Letronne region four minute videos (captured at 2 frames/second) were obtained every 8 minutes, while the Mare Humorum region videos were 3 minutes in duration. The last hour of images were of poor quality as the Moon was very low in the western sky. These images were not included in the movies below. Typically, the best 100-200 images from each video were averaged in RegiStax 2 to improve the signal to noise ratio, and help counter the random effects of atmospheric distortion. The Moon was also at a very southern declination, ~20^oS, thus not in an optimum position from my observing site near 37^oN. Even so, craters of ~3km in diameter are resolved (e.g., Doppelmayer L in Mare Humorum). The full frame movies measure ~576 x 432km. The panorama image at the bottom was constructed from successive images of Mare Humorum and Gassendi/Letronne.

Gassendi and Letronne: The Movie (6.2mb) The file is big, but I think it's worth the download! See sunrise extend along the rim of Liebig, shadows wane from the central peaks of Gassendi, and dawn advance in the foothills of Letronne. 25 September 2004, 04:16-08:21UT
Gassendi and Letronne: The Movie (3.3mb) This is a cropped region of the movie above that concentrates on the Gassendi/Letronne region. 25 September 2004, 04:16-08:21UT
Mare Humorum & Gassendi: The Movie (5.2mb) This is a cropped region of the movie above that concentrates on the Gassendi/Letronne region. 25 September 2004, 05:15-08:24UT

Mare Humorum to Letronne (113kb) Panorama assembled from two successive images. 25 September 2004, 07:52UT
Mare Humorum to Letronne (55kb) Unlabeled version of the above. 25 September 2004, 07:52UT