The Moon: considered as a planet, a world, and a satellite.Nasmyth, James
Science
The Moon: considered as a planet, a world, and a satellite.
Nasmyth, James
Moon
The excellent map resulting from the arduous labours of these
astronomers is simply a map: it does not pretend to be a picture. The
asperities and depressions are symbolized by a conventional system of
shading and no attempt is made to exhibit objects as they actually
appear in the telescope. A casual observer comparing details on the map
with the same details on the moon itself would fail to identify or
recognize them except where the features are very conspicuous. Such an
observer would be struck by the shadows by which the lunar objects
reveal themselves: he would get to know them mostly by their shadows,
since it is mainly by those that their forms are revealed to a
terrestrial observer. But such a map as that under notice indicates no
shadows, and objects have to be identified upon it rather by their
positions with regard to one another or to the borders of the moon than
by any notable features they actually present to view. This
inconvenience occurred to us in our early use of Beer and Maedler’s
chart, and we were induced to prepare for ourselves a map in which every
object is shown somewhat, if imperfectly, as it actually appears at some
period of a lunation. This was done by copying Beer and Maedler’s
outlines and filling them up by appropriate shading. To do justice to
our task we enlarged our map to a diameter of six feet. Upon a circle of
this diameter the positions and dimensions of all objects were laid down
from the German original. Then from our own observations we depicted the
general aspect of each object: and we so adjusted the shading that all
objects should be shown under about the same angle of illumination—a
condition which is never fulfilled upon the moon itself, but which we
consider ourselves justified in exhibiting for the purpose of conveying
a fair impression of how the various lunar objects actually appear at
some one or other part of a lunation.
The picture-map thus produced has been photographed to the size
convenient for this work: and in order to make it available for the
identification of such objects as we may have occasion to refer to, we
have placed around it a co-ordinate scale of arbitrary divisions by
which any object can be found as by the latitude and longitude divisions
upon a common geographical map. We have also prepared a skeleton map
which includes the more conspicuous objects, and which faces the picture
map (Plates IV. and V.) The numbers on the skeleton map are those given
in the second column of the accompanying table. The table also gives the
co-ordinate positions of the various craters, the names of which are,
for convenience of reference, printed in alphabetical order.
Name. Number. Map Ordinates.
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