Abstract
WHEN Galileo and his contemporaries examined the moon with the newly invented telescope, they found a surface covered with a variety of formations of which they made rough charts. To these formations there were added later the names of terrestrial objects as well as those of famous men, many of whom had no connexion with selenography or even astronomy. Hevel (1647) was the first to name lunar objects; his example being followed by other selenographers, who adopted the names already given, altered them, or added new ones according to their unfettered discretion. The whole structure of lunar nomenclature has thus been built up in a most haphazard way.
Named Lunar Formations
By Mary A. Blagg K. Müller. Drawn up by them for Commission 17 and approved at the Meeting of the International Astronomical Union held at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1932. Vol.1: Catalogue. Pp. xii + 196. Vol. 2: Map of the Moon. By W. H. Wesley and Mary A. Blagg, based on the Fiducial Measures of S. A. Saunder and J. Franz. Pp. 15. (London: Percy Lund, Humphries and Co., Ltd., 1935.)
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
GOODACRE, W. Named Lunar Formations. Nature 137, 90 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137090a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137090a0