Astronomy with an Opera-glass: A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical InstrumentsServiss, Garrett Putman
Science
Astronomy with an Opera-glass: A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical Instruments
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Astronomy
From the foot of Proclus spreads away the somewhat triangular region
called the Marsh of Sleep (F). The term "golden-brown," which has been
applied to it, perhaps describes its hue well enough. With a telescope
it is a most interesting region, but with less powerful instruments one
must be content with recognizing its outline and color.
The broad, dark-gray expanse of the Sea of Tranquillity (G) will be
readily recognized by the observer, and he will be interested in the
mottled aspect which it presents in certain regions, caused by ridges
and elevations, which, when this sea-bottom was covered with water, may
have formed shoals and islands.
The Sea of Fertility (X) is remarkable for its irregular surface, and
the long, crooked bays into which its southern extremity is divided.
The Sea of Nectar (V) is connected with the Sea of Tranquillity by a
broad strait (one would naturally anticipate from their names that there
must be some connection between them), while between it and the Sea of
Fertility runs the range of the Pyrenees Mountains, twelve thousand feet
high, flanked by many huge volcanic mountain-rings.
The Sea of Serenity (H), lying northeast of the Sea of Tranquillity, is
about four hundred and twenty miles broad by four hundred and thirty
miles long, being very nearly of the same area as our Caspian Sea. It is
deeper than the Sea of Tranquillity, and a greenish hue is sometimes
detected in its central parts. It deepens toward the middle. Three
quarters of its shore-line are bordered by high mountains, and many
isolated elevations and peaks are scattered over its surface. In looking
at these dried-up seas of the moon, one is forcibly reminded of the
undulating and in some places mountainous character of terrestrial
sea-bottoms, as shown by soundings and the existence of small islands in
the deep sea, like the Bermudas, the Azores and St. Helena. The Sea of
Serenity is divided nearly through the center by a narrow, bright
streak, apparently starting from the crater-mountain Menelaus (36 in the
map), but really taking its rise at Tycho far in the south. This curious
streak can be readily detected even with a small opera-glass. Just what
it is no one is prepared to say, and so the author of the "Moon Hoax"
was fairly entitled to take advantage of the romancer's license, and
declare that "its edge throughout its whole length of three hundred and
forty miles is an acute angle of solid quartz-crystal, brilliant as a
piece of Derbyshire spar just brought from the mine, and containing
scarcely a fracture or a chasm from end to end!" Along the southern
shore, on either side of Menelaus, extends the high range of the Haemus
Mountains. South and southeast of the Sea of Serenity are the Sea of
Vapors (L), the Central Gulf (M), and the Gulf of Heats (N). The
observer will notice at full moon three or four curious dark spots in
the region occupied by these flat expanses. On the north and northwest
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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