Copernicus is a lunar impact crater typical of those formed during the Copernican period (approximately 1.1 billion years ago to the present day) with a bright ray system. It's a prominent crater, viewable from the Earth using binocular🥂s. It was named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus by Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Riccioli in 1651, which is odd given that Riccioli was an Italian Jesuit priest and he publicly conformed with church doctrine that opposed Copernicus’s heliocentric system. Recent historians suggest that Riccioli secretly supported the heliocentric system and named this prominent crater after Copernicus to ensure his legacy. 

The present mosaic, composed of telephoto images, focuses on the crater’s center and includes its mountainous peaks that rise to around 4,000 feet. Period examples of Lunar Orbiter mosaics are exceptiona🌠lly rare, especially of this size: almost 5 1/4 x 11 feet!

NASꦍA's Lunar Orbiter program sent a series of 5 robotic probes over the period of a year to photograph the lunar surface in order to help select Apollo and Surveyor landing sites, conduct scientific measurements, as well as to accurately map the Moon. The first three probes💛 were dedicated to photographing 20 potential crewed landing sites and the fourth and fifth missions were high altitude orbits that contributed to capturing images of 99% of the lunar surface. 

The Lunar Orbiter spacecraft were each equipped with two cameras that simultaneously captured both lower resolution with an 80mm (wide angle) lens and high resolution with a 610mm (telephoto) lens, but on the same line of sight and recorded to a common supply of 70mm film. The cameras were part of a Kodak photographic system that also included a film processor and an analog scanner so the images could be radio transmitted to Earth. The data was gathered by three N🎶ASA Deep Space Network receiving stations and sent to the Army Map Service and NASA Langley. The video signal was converted into variations of light on a cathode ray tube, and the image produced was captured on positive film by a 35 mm camera. Each film positive is known as a framelet, and the Orbiter's original photograph is recreated by placing the 🃏framelets side by side.