"Lets hope there is intelligent life in space..........."

The large crater Copernicus and above it and to its left the crater Eratosphenes. Taken from our backyard in June 2016, using my Meade 127mm. Apo-refractor and QHY5-11 planetary camera.

The crater Copernicus is roughly circular with a diameter of 93 kilometres. The walls are terraced and slumped. The central mountains are the result of bounce back after the massive impact that created the crater.

This colour saturated view reflects the differences in mineral composition of the Moon's surface in and around Copernicus in Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms).

The colours in themselves do not signify anything, and under different lighting conditions the same area may appear a different colour.  The colours reflect changes in albedo or how much light is being reflected and albedo is related to mineral composition. Therefore it is the differences in colour between different areas that are significant.

Eratosphenes and Copernicus at higher resolution taken with my 127mm apo-refractor at F22

You know, sometimes late at night when I'm out alone in our backyard looking out into the Universe, I wonder if somewhere there are intelligent life forms, beings who long ago gave up on hate, war, strife, and greed. Then again, I'm a real naive, a hopeless dreamer and to be fair the Universe is only 13.7 billion years old. I guess I will have to wait a little longer to find out.

The mineral version

Nicholas Copernicus was a Polish cleric, diplomat, mathematician and astronomer who was born in 1473.  He is best known for his model of the universe which placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its centre. The crater was named after him in recognition of his contribution to the scientific revolution.

Eratosphenes of Cyrene (now part of Libya) was an ancient Greek born in 276BC. He was a mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer and music theorist. He is attributed with inventing the discipline of 'geography' and being first to estimate the circumference of the Earth. 

Credits: Wikipedia