Possible photographic capture of a TLP

A TLP or Transient Lunar Phenomenon is a short-lived event on the Moon. Of course, the Moon is essentially a still and lifeless world but things do happen. For instance, the stresses and strains caused by the gravitational forces between Earth and Moon can give rise to the venting of a cloud of gas. If that cloud reflects sunlight or obscures parts of the moonscape, and if it is large enough, then it can be seen from Earth through a telescope. The better/larger the telescope the smaller the feature that can be observed.

Spots of colours can appear, often, but not exclusively, red. One such observation is given in my book in chapter 11. It is a red colouration within the crater Robinson.

Very rarely seen, and even more rarely captured on camera, are flashes as debris falls from space. It is worth noting here that on Earth bright streaks can be seen across the sky caused by small particles shooting at high speed through the air but this cannot happen on the Moon. There is virtually no air to create resistance and heating to emit light. So, meteoroids from space become meteor streaks (shooting stars) then meteorites that arrive at the surface of the Earth. On the Moon meteoroids drop straight down to the surface to create meteorites. No meteors! Efforts are, however, currently being made to continuously monitor and record the Moon’s surface with sensitive equipment and a flash has already been captured of just a fraction of a second’s duration.

On browsing through my images, with more experience of noticing features of interest, I detected a very small bright spot within the crater Gutenberg A, that sits to the side of Gutenberg. Since a sequence of pictures had been taken it was possible to state that the spot was not present in frames 30 seconds either side. Could it be a TLP? Sir Patrick thought it was worthy of further investigation. If you would like to follow the story and conclusion further then click here to go to ‘UpdateTLPstory’.

So it really is possible for amateurs, even beginners, to make a contribution to astronomy using my simple technique.