Earth's Moon - Ranger 8

Ptolemaeus and Alphonsus craters on the Moon

Earth's Moon
The first image taken by the Ranger 8 camera B on 20 February 1965 shows the 164 km diameter Ptolemaeus crater, top center, and below it Alphonsus crater (diameter 108 km). The Davy crater chain can be seen immediately to the right of the left-middle reticle mark as a dotted white line extending SWW to NEE. The picture was taken 23 minutes before impact from a range of 2545 km. The image is about 360 km across and north is up. Ranger 8 was the second successful lunar impact mission in the series. (Ranger 8, B001)
Larger image:

High resolution tiff file (1.0 Mb)

Location & Time Information
Date/Time (UT): 1965-02-20 T 09:34:35
Distance/Range (km): 2545.50
Central Latitude/Longitude (deg): -11.78, 002.31 W
Orbit(s): Impact - Hard Landing

Imaging Information
Area or Feature Type: crater, mare, crater chain
Instrument: Vidicon Camera B
Instrument Resolution (pixels): 1150 x 1150
Instrument Field of View (deg): 8.4
Filter: None
Illumination Incidence Angle (deg): 48.7
Phase Angle (deg): 34.0
Instrument Look Direction: N/A
Surface Emission Angle (deg): 15.9

Ordering Information
CD-ROM Volume: N/A
NASA Image ID number: Ranger 8 B001
Other Image ID number: N/A
NSSDC Data Set ID (Photo): 65-010A-01A
NSSDC Data Set ID (CD): N/A
Other ID:

Updated 23 April 2003, DRW.