The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical featuresElger, Thomas Gwyn
Science
The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical features
Elger, Thomas Gwyn
Moon
TIMOCHARIS.--A fine ring-plain, 23 miles in diameter (the centre of a
minor ray-system). It stands isolated on the Mare Imbrium (below the
level of which it is depressed some 3000 feet), about midway between
Archimedes and Lambert. Its walls, rising about 7000 feet above the
floor, are conspicuously terraced, and on their W. outer slopes exhibit
some remarkable depressions. There is a distinct break on the N., and a
bright little crater on the N.W., connected with the foot of the _glacis_
by a prominent ridge. On the bright central mountain, Schmidt, in 1842,
detected a crater, which is easily seen under a moderately high light.
Timocharis and the neighbourhood, especially the peculiar shape of the
terminator on the E. of the formation, is well worth examination at
sunrise.
PIAZZI SMYTH.--A conspicuous little ring-plain, 5 or 6 miles in diameter,
depressed about 1500 feet below the Mare Imbrium, with a border rising
about 2000 feet above it. With the curious arrangement of ridges, of
which it is the apparent centre, it is a striking object under a low sun.
KIRCH.--A rather smaller object of the same class on the S.E.
PLATO.--This beautiful walled-plain, 60 miles in diameter, with its
bright border and dark steel-grey floor, has, from the time of Hevelius
to the present, been one of the most familiar objects to lunar observers.
In the rude maps of the seventeenth century it figures as the "Lacus
Niger Major," an appellation which not inaptly describes its appearance
under a high sun, when the sombre tone of its apparently smooth interior
is in striking contrast to that of the isthmus on which the formation
stands. It will repay observation under every phase, and though during
the last thirty years no portion of the moon has been more diligently
scrutinised than the floor; the neighbourhood includes a very great
number of objects of every kind, which, not having received so much
attention, will afford ample employment to the possessor of a good
telescope during many lunations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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