Alfraganus
Contents
Alfraganus
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Lat: 5.4°S, Long: 19.0°E, Diam: 20 km, Depth: 3.8 km, Rükl: 46 |
LO-IV-084H The black stripe on the left is the Lunar Orbiter framelet and calibration data.
Images
LPOD Photo Gallery Lunar Orbiter Images Apollo Images
- Apollo 16's orbital ITEK-panoramic frame AS16-P-4548 and its stereo-companion AS16-P-4553 show north-looking oblique views of Alfraganus (the pronounced crater near the right margins of both frames).
- Another ITEK-frame of Alfraganus is AS16-P-5323 (scroll rightward beyond the central part of the frame).
- The bowl-shaped high albedo crater Alfraganus C (west-southwest of Alfraganus itself) shows a degree of reflected light on the shadowed part of its eastern inner slopes, as captured on several of Apollo 16's northward-looking mapping/metric Fairchild frames, such as AS16-M-0831, in which Alfraganus C is noticeable just "below" the end of the SIM-bay's extended antenna (and Alfraganus itself just "above" of it).
Research orbital Apollo 16 photography: Danny Caes
Maps
(LAC zone 78A3) LAC map Geologic map LM map AIC map LTO map
Description
Description: Elger
(IAU Directions) ALFRAGANUS.--A large bright crater, about 9 miles in diameter, with very steep walls, some distance S.S.E. of Delambre, and standing on the E. edge of a large but very shallow and irregular depression E. of Taylor. There is a remarkable chain of craters on the E. of it. Alfraganus is the centre of a system of light streaks radiating in all directions, one ray extending through Cyrillus to Fracastorius.
Description: Wikipedia
Additional Information
- Depth data from Kurt Fisher database
- Pike, 1976: 3.8 km
- Arthur, 1974: 3.83 km
- Westfall, 2000: 3.83 km
- Viscardy, 1985: 3.83 km
- Cherrington, 1969: 2.8 km
- Alfraganus and its satellite craters A and C are included in ALPO list of bright ray craters.
- Alfraganus and Alfraganus C are thermal anomaly craters, implying youthful ages - Moore et al, 1980
Nomenclature
Al-Fargani or Alfraganus, was a Persian astronomer and one of the famous astronomers in 9th century. He was involved in the measurement of the diameter of the Earth. His textbook Elements of astronomy on the celestial motions, written about 833, was a competent descriptive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was translated into Latin in the twelfth century and remained very popular in Europe until the time of Regiomontanus.
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Bibliography
