Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 52

DECEMBER 2023 OBSERVING
Exploring the Solar System by Charles A. Wood
Observing
the Moon
Mappers
Track down the craters
named after the giants of
lunar cartography.
T
he Moon was the first astronomical
object to be studied scientifically.
Even the first small telescopes revealed
details never before imagined. Many
observers soon began drawing maps to
record the lunar surface. Those who
drew the best-known ones were later
commemorated with crater names.
You can trace the development of lunar
cartography by observing the craters
honoring these early Moon mappers.
The best known (if not first) early,
fairly accurate rendering of the lunar
surface was by Galileo Galilei, whose
watercolors are an artistic record of
discovery in late 1609. With his 20×
telescope, Galileo famously discovered
hollows, mountains, deep valleys,
and flat plains - showing the Moon
was not an idealized perfect sphere
but a world with varied terrains that
reminded him of Earth. Despite his
extraordinary discoveries, he was honored
with an inconspicuous, 16-kmwide
(10-mile-wide) crater (Galilaei)
on the northwestern side of Oceanus
Procellarum, close to the lunar limb.
The earliest map of the nearly complete
visible lunar surface was made
by the Flemish mapmaker Michael
van Langren in 1645. He rushed his
map and included the least amount
of detail, naming craters after royalty
and Christian saints as well as ancient
philosophers and scientists. This was
52 DECEMBER 2023 * SKY & TELESCOPE
11
12
3
8
5
4
15
14
10
1
13
7
9
6
16
quickly followed by better maps made
by the Polish astronomer Johannes
Hevelius (1647) and Giovanni Riccioli
of Italy (1651). Both Hevelius and Riccioli
introduced their own systems of
nomenclature. Hevelius undertook the
first large scientific investigation of the
Moon, Selenographia, which included
descriptions of interesting features,
eclipses, phase maps, and areas visible
during good librations.
Riccioli published a two-volume
book about astronomy that included the
Moon and featured two maps drawn by
a fellow Jesuit, Francesco Grimaldi. The
nomenclature system introduced in the
Grimaldi/Riccioli map continues to be
the basis for naming features almost
four centuries later.
All of these mid-17th century
mappers are commemorated on the
Moon. Langrenus is a prominent,
132-km crater at the eastern shore of
Mare Fecunditatis - a crater named
by van Langren for himself. Hevelius
is a 114-km-wide, degraded version of
Langrenus, located south of Galilaei.
Grimaldi is the 235-km-wide, rimmed
central mare of what we now recognize
as the Grimaldi Basin, and immediately
to its northwest is 146-km Riccioli.
German astronomer Tobias Mayer
was the first to painstakingly measure
the positions of craters and other
NASA / GSFC / ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Sky & Telescope - December 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - December 2023

Contents
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - Cover1
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - Cover2
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 1
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - Contents
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 3
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 4
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 5
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 6
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 7
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 8
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 9
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 10
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 11
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 12
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 13
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 14
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 15
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 16
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 17
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 18
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 19
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 20
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 21
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 22
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 23
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 24
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 25
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 26
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 27
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 28
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 29
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 30
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 31
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 32
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 33
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 34
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 35
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 36
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 37
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 38
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 39
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 40
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 41
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 42
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 43
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Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 45
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 46
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 47
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 48
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 49
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 50
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 51
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Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 71
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 72
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 73
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Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 81
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Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - 84
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - Cover3
Sky & Telescope - December 2023 - Cover4
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