MOON TOUR
MAIRAN
Overshadowed by its more famous neighbour Plato, Mairan is well worth a look on a clear night
There are a lot of craters on the Moon that would be more famous and better appreciated if they weren’t so close to other features that were bigger, more prominent or just better looking. If you scan the lunar landscape around ‘celebrity’ craters like Copernicus and Ptolemaeus, you’ll find lots of smaller craters that would be very popular targets for lunar observers if only they weren’t so close to those beasts. Likewise, in the low-lying areas on either side of the curved dinosaur spine of the jagged Montes Apenninus, you’ll find lots of smaller craters, hills and rilles worth looking at, but with their peaks jutting out of the surface so magnificently, nothing in their shadow gets a look in.