Moon's craters from Lahore

by Salman Hameed 


There is a steady growth of astronomy in Pakistan (see Astronomy catching on in Pakistan). It is fantastic to see that today's Lunar Photo of the Day (LPOD) was taken by Umair Asim from Lahore (see his own website here). Congrats to Umair!

Here is the picture and a short blurb from LPOD:

This is a nice view of a lunar region that never fails to delight. But what I like about Umair's work, besides that he brings another nation into the fold of LPOD contributors, is what he did next. He labeled the image to provide more information about the the features depicted. He did the labeling on an iPad using the very convenient app Photo Measures (which really doesn't make measurements, but records them). Such images could be very useful in a lecture about the Moon or as posters on classroom walls. But even without sharing, labeling causes us to think more personally about lunar features we normally see without any sense of scale. Comparison with a Google Maps image shows that Umair's bustling town of Lahore would fit inside the rough floor of 44 km wide Maupertuis. And the distance from Prom. Laplace to Prom. Heraclides is about the same as from Lahore to the snow-covered front ranges of the Himalayas. Why not compare one of your images with meaningful distances near your home?

More LPOD here.