Eratosthanes

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Photographer:

Ken Vaughan

Location of Photo:

Cattle Point, Victoria, BC, Canada

Date/Time of photo:

22 Jan 21

Equipment:

12" Meade LX200GPS, ZWO ASI178MM, Astronomik 642 filter

Description:

If you want to read a neat story about the ancients, read how Eratosthenes figured out the circumference of the Earth using only a well, a stick in the ground, and geometry. Eratosthenes lays to the northeast of Copernicus. The ghost crater Stadius (70 km), at lower left in this image, is between them. It sits at the southeastern tip of the Montes Apenninus., sandwiched between southern Mare Imbrium to the north and Sinus Aestuum to the southeast. The hills to Eratosthenes' southwest are unnamed. The six little bowl-shaped craters to the north are all in the 4-6 km range in size. Eratosthenes is not as old as the oldest craters on the Moon, in the range of 1.1 - 3.2 billion years old. It has complex terracing and a central massif of peaks.