The Moon: A Popular TreatiseServiss, Garrett Putman
Science
The Moon: A Popular Treatise
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Moon
“Oh, yes, but the distinctness of view would be nothing like so great as
if you were looking at the same objects on the earth. Still, if we could
obviate the atmospheric and other difficulties, a magnifying power of
one million would certainly enable us to discover the works of the
moon’s inhabitants—their houses, their fields, their plantations, their
great establishments of art and industry. But I assure you that a
telescope of such power is a mere dream. It could never be constructed
without some fundamentally new and unheard-of discovery in optics. We
shall do better to turn once more to our photographs which, at least,
have no deceptions. Dropping No. 12, we shall take up No. 13, which
brings us practically to the Full Moon phase. The moon’s age at the time
this photograph was made was nearly fourteen and one-half days. You see
that its whole eastward face is now lying in the sunlight. The march of
day across its surface has been completed, and on the western edge of
the moon the sun is about to set, while on the eastern edge it is just
rising. Among the new things that have come into view is a conspicuous
dark oval, shaped like Plato, but very much larger, near the eastern
edge. This is a walled plain named Grimaldi, and it enjoys the
distinction of being the darkest on the moon. Near it on the northeast
and consequently closer to the limb is another walled plain, which I
promised some time ago to point out to you because it bears the name of
the astronomer Riccioli, the great bestower of names on the moon, and
upon whose lack of imagination you have so severely commented. But, as
you have already learned, the time of Full Moon is not the best for
studying the mountains and rings, because then the light strikes too
nearly vertical upon them and they cast no shadows. But it is the best
time for seeing the broad general features of the lunar surface. Turn
the picture upside down again, thus bringing the disk into its natural
position as seen with the naked eye, and this photograph shows the moon
very much as it appears with a small pocket telescope, or with a
powerful binocular. The new prism binoculars that have come into use
within the past few years are excellent for general views of the moon.
Their defining powers are superb, and one who has never seen the moon
with such a glass is always greatly surprised and delighted with the
view which it affords. You see now that Tycho forms a blazing brooch,
resting on the Maiden’s neck, while its rays extend across her profile,
and the long one lying over the _Mare Serenitatis_ bears some
resemblance to a pin displayed in her hair, with the crater ring,
Menelaus, glittering at its lower end. The other bright point, to the
left of Menelaus (we will henceforth keep the picture reversed), is a
ring mountain named Manilius. After the detailed study which we have
given to the various ‘seas’ and formations you should be able to
recognize them with the picture in this position, and I wish that you
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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