As the landing date for the Chandrayaan 2 approaches which is on 7th September it is curious on where it is going to land. Amateur Astronomers who keep observing the celestial objects are more curious and would love to know the position of landing so that they can spot the landing area on the moon with their telescopes. Most of the craters are visible with small telescopes and there are lot of maps that are available online to spot the craters.
About the craters Manzinus C and Simpelius N
ISRO sources say that the landing site
will be between craters Manzinus C and Simpelius N on the high lands
between them. As amateurs will know the letters next to the crater
names says that these are smaller craters around the big crater. Here
Manzinus is a big crater with a diameter close to 100 km diameter and smaller craters near its vicinity are given capital letters for example
Manzinus crater has Manzinus C, Manzinus D, Manzinus G, Manzinus E
etc,. This is same with all craters, so Simpelius N is a small crater
close to Simpelius crater which is close to 70km in diameter.
Locating the Landing site of Chandrayaan 2
To find the crater its good to start
with the best known bright crater on the south side of the moon, the
Tycho crater. After finding Tycho, the next hop is to near by crater
Magnius, this is also easy to find because of the size of the crater,
the Magnius crater is close to 160km in diameter. Next hop is to
Crater Zach which is also easy to find due its appearance. Continuing
in the same line to almost limb of the moon the landing sites of
Chandarayaan 2 can be found, the craters Manzinus C and Simpelius N.
Crater Manzinus C is easy to find because of the diameter it has,
close to 20km, but the Simpelius N is little challenging at 8km
diameter.
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| Location of Chandrayaan 2 Landing Site |
Best time to Spot the Landing site of Chandrayaan 2
To attempt to spot the craters Sun has
to light it up, as I am writing this article on 21st of August the craters are
in the dark, the next chance will come on 6th September, when moon is
half lit and the craters will be easy to spot until 17th of
September. For future reference the craters are best seen from half
moon after new moon to 3 days after full moon. Happy Spotting.
