Lunar Serendipity

This NASA image is in the public domain.

It's serendipity that NASA's Lunar Reconnassance Orbiter Camera team releasing the most detailed photo of the moon ever the same week the telescope we bought for our soon-to-be 11-year-old arrived via UPS.

When I got a telescope at his age -- and why I didn't hang on to it I'll never know -- the Moon, being the largest object in the nighttime sky, was my first target. I stared that that thing for hours and had NO IDEA what I was looking at, because back then we didn't have spectacular internet-based moon photos and only hand onions to hang on our belts.

So looking at LROC's Flash version of the image here, and contemplating downloading the half-gig image as well, puts me on tenterhooks to get the telescope out and do some looking. Maybe I'll finally be able to see the houses and buildings in Matthew K. Looney's Crater Plato.