For anyone who hasn’t seen magnified pictures of the Moon’s surface the first, especially if the pictures are your own, are just awesome. The smooth light and dark patches suddenly become full of glorious dents and bumps. Who cares what the bits are called! Look what I’ve got - a scene that could be interpreted as the most outrageous, over-emphasised earthly desert known.

Although the Moon’s surface is, to all intents and purposes, monochrome shades of grey the effect of the Earth’s atmosphere on the transmitted light gives the pictures wonderful pastel shades of yellows, oranges and browns to enhance its beauty. It must be noted, however, that recent image enhancement techniques have revealed faint colours that reflect the chemical nature of the various surfaces.

Now you have the pictures, what do they show? The dents are craters, 30,000 of them 2 kilometres or more in diameter, rugged mountains and solidified lava flows that Galileo interpreted as seas. 30,000 craters are too many to learn but we can make a start. [click here to go to Recognition]