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Observing Lunar Bright and Light Rays, Bright Spots, and Banded Craters

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Abstract

Even well into the twentieth century, students of the Moon, such as British amateur astronomer Walter Goodacre, considered the rays still to be the greatest lunar enigma, even though they had been studied for about 400 years. Observers were still baffled by the very nature of these conspicuously effulgent bright rays, spreading out like thin radial spokes crisscrossing the vast expanses of the lunar landscape.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Galileo Galilei, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, translated by Stillman Drake (1975), 37.

  2. 2.

    George G. Carey, Astronomy as it is Known Today (1825), 66. Cary was also the author of A Complete System of Th eoretical and Mercantile Arithmetic (1818), Astronomy (1831), and Elements of Astronomy (1835).

  3. 3.

    James Nasmyth, “On the Telescopic Appearance of the Moon” Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society (London: June 1846), 152, 153. Th is article was a slightly revised version of the report of Nasmyth’s letter “On the Telescopic Appearance of the Moon Accompanying a Model and a Drawing of a Portion of Her surface.” MNRAS 6 (8) (June 14, 1844), 80, 81. The 1844 publication was a report on receipt of the letter by the Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., 154, 155.

  5. 5.

    To make Figure 23.6 and Figure 23.7, I used an actual photograph of the cracked globe that is pasted down in the fi rst edition of the book.

  6. 6.

    James Nasmyth and James Carpenter, The Moon: Considered as A Planet, A World, and A Satellite (1874), 134.

  7. 7.

    Richard Proctor, The Moon (1878), 178–180.

  8. 8.

    William Birt to Dr. John Lee, an unpublished letter (May 10, 1859), 3, 4. The underlining is as in the letter. From the author’s collection.

  9. 9.

    Nathaniel S. Shaler, “Investigation of Lunar Phenomena” in Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, vol. 8, part I (1876), 52.

  10. 10.

    John Ericsson, “The Lunar Surface and Its Temperature.” Nature 34 (July 15, 1886), 248.

  11. 11.

    William H. Pickering, The Moon (1904), 45–48.

  12. 12.

    Herbert G. Tomkins, “The Lunar Bright Rays” JBAA 17 (9) (1908), 361–378.

  13. 13.

    Herbert G. Tomkins, “Note on Photography and the Physical Condition of the Moon.” MNRAS 88 (2) (December 9, 1927), 158

  14. 14.

    V. A. Firsoff, Strange World of the Moon (1959), 168.

  15. 15.

    Dinsmore Alter, Pictorial Guide to the Moon (1967), 129–131.

  16. 16.

    V. A. Firsoff, Strange World of the Moon (1959), 164, 165.

  17. 17.

    Eugene Shoemaker, “Preliminary Analysis of the Fine Structure of the Lunar surface in Mare Cognitum” in Ranger VII, Part II, Experimenters’ Analysis and Interpretations (1965), 75–135.

  18. 18.

    Richard Proctor, The Moon (1878), 179.

  19. 19.

    Carle M. Pieters, J. B. Adams, M. O. Smith, P. J. Mouginis-Mark, and S. H. Zisk. “The Nature of Crater Rays–The Copernicus Example” JGeoRes 90 (12) (December 10, 1985), 12,393–12,413.

  20. 20.

    William Birt to Dr. John Lee, an unpublished letter (May 10, 1859), 2. Underlining is as in the letter. From the author’s collection.

  21. 21.

    Grant H. Heiken, David T. Vaniman, and Bevan M. French, Lunar Sourcebook (New York, 1991), 605.

  22. 22.

    William Porthouse, “List of Lunar Drawings–Aristarchus–Methods of Drawing–Lunar Catalogue” English Mechanic and World of Science (January 21, 1916), 570.

  23. 23.

    Walter Goodacre, The Moon (1931), 265.

  24. 24.

    Robert J. Hackman, “A Lunar Isotonal Map” Photogrammetric Engineering 30 (No. 6) (1964), 1011–1016.

  25. 25.

    Th omas Gwyn Empy Elger, The Moon (1895), 30.

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Garfinkle, R.A. (2020). Observing Lunar Bright and Light Rays, Bright Spots, and Banded Craters. In: Luna Cognita. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1664-1_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1664-1_23

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