Shadows in Plato

by James Ferreira

Early Monday morning (1230UT 01Nov99) I spent some time viewing the Moon with a 25cm Newtonian and though seeing conditions were very transparent, sadly, they were also extremely turbulent. Never the less, among other choice features that I spent some time examining, I looked closely at the shadows on the floor of Plato cast by its eastern wall. The sun was still relatively high so the shadows were not as long as I had hoped to catch this lunation, but one shadow north of the triangular section of wall that has slumped towards the crater floor was very prominent. Often it is difficult to identify which section of wall is actually casting the longer shadows, but in this case the higher elevation was brighter than the wall sections on either side and easy to identify.

There were two sections of the shadow that suggested that they may be made by the small gaps on either side of the broken away triangular section of wall. The northern section of the broken wall appears to have a small peak on it as it cast a longer shadow, then the shadow shortens slightly on the northern side possibly showing the gag between the broken section and crater wall. The southern gap is less apparent, if visible at all, as the shadow joins the wall very near where the gap should appear. But the impression is a shadow showing the gap.

In a couple of hours the shadows would have been spectacular, unfortunately the sun would be rising shortly and I had to go to work. I did capture some video of the view and have posted it at:

http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/canterbury/222/shadow.htm

Perhaps next lunation will favor us with views of longer shadows.