homework 6
Part 2
The Moon is lit up by the sun as it goes around (orbits) the earth. His poor telescope only magnified thirty times. Nevertheless, in the spots that pitted the lunar disc “like eyes in a peacock's tail,” he was the first to recognise mountains, and measure some heights to which he attributed, exaggerating, an elevation equal to the 20th of the diameter of the disc, or 8,000 metres. Galileo drew up no map of his observations.
These different stages are called Lunar - by operations which were only exact twice a month, at the first and second quadrature-reduced Galileo's heights to one-twenty-sixth only of the lunar diameter. This was an exaggeration the other way. But it is to this savant that the first map of the moon is due. The light round spots there form circular mountains, and the dark spots indicate vast seas which, in reality, are plains. To these mountains and extents of sea he gave terrestrial denominations. There is a Sinai in the middle of an Arabia, Etna in the centre of Sicily, the Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caspian, &c.-names badly applied, for neither mountains nor seas recalled the configuration of their namesakes on the globe. That large white spot, joined on the south to vaster continents and terminated in a point, could hardly be recognised as the inverted image of the Indian Peninsula, the Bay of Bengal, and Cochin-China. So these names were not kept. Another chartographer, knowing human nature better, proposed a fresh nomenclature, which human vanity made haste to adopt.
The next phase of the moon is called the "waxing crescent", a contemporary of Hevelius. He drew up a rough map full of errors. But he gave to the lunar mountains the names of great men of antiquity and savants of his own epoch.
A third map of the moon was executed in the seventeenth century by Dominique Cassini; superior to that of Riccioli in the execution, it is inexact in the measurements. Several smaller copies were published, but the plate long kept in the Imprimerie Nationale was sold by weight as old brass.
People, used the moon to measure time. A month is approximately equal in time to a lunar cycle.
This is called the dark side of the moon, about the middle of the eighteenth century, began the publication of a magnificent selenographic map, according to lunar measures, which he rigorously verified; but his death, which took place in 1762, prevented the termination of this beautiful work.
Before people stood on the Moon, some of the big countries in the world, the United State and Russia composed their celebrated Mappa Selenographica, according to an orthographical projection. This map reproduces the exact lunar disc, such as it appears, only the configurations of the mountains and plains are only correct in the central part; everywhere else-in the northern or southern portions, eastern or western-the configurations foreshortened cannot be compared with those of the centre. This topographical map, one yard high and divided into four parts, is a masterpiece of lunar chartography.
After these savants may be cited the selenographic reliefs of the German astronomer footprints, the topographical works of Eugene Cernan, the magnificent sheets of the English amateur, Waren de la Rue, and lastly a map on orthographical projection of Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, a fine model set up in 21 July, 1969, of very correct design and clear outlines.
Such is the nomenclature of the different maps relating to the lunar world. astronauts possessed two, that of spacesuits and Moedler so Miller and Leon. They were to make his work of observer easier.