Lunar History - 1600s

1603: W Gilbert (1540-1603): Only known pre-telescopic drawing of the Moon which shows anything other than vague shadings.

external image 1609-gilbert.gif

Gilbert's drawing is about the minimum a careful observer would notice! The locations and sizes of the maria are poor, and no craters - not even Tycho - are shown. This drawing is famous for being the only pre-telescopic drawing, but it is not a careful redition of what is visible. Doubt me? If so go out and make your own sketch - it will be better.

1609: T Harriot First telescopic (6 power) external image harriot_luna_2.htm map of the Moon.

<img width="94" height="93" border="0" src="" />1610: Galileo Galilei:<a href="http://www.lpod.org/cwm/Timeline/1600s/1609-Galileo.html"> Sidereus Nuncius</a> .(The Starry Messenger) - The first published <a href="http://www.coelum.com/calanca/manoscr_galileo.htm">drawings</a> of the Moon as seen through a telescope. The drawings are dramatic and relatively poor, but the description of mountains (and measures of their heights) and craters revealed that the Moon was not a perfect sphere as naively believed.

1614: P Scheiner: Disquisitiones Mathematicae de controversiis et novitatibus astronomicis. Contains a [[image:http://www.coelum.com/calanca/luna_scheiner.htm%7Cdrawing]] of first quarter Moon showing seas but virtually no craters.

1636: Mellan: Very good engraving of second quarter Moon, with hundreds of identifiable features- the first good image of the Moon, drawn by an artist.

1645: MF Langrenus: Selenographia, sive Lumina austriaca-philippica, Paris. - First nomenclature for craters and seas, but the only name that survives is his own for a crater near the Moon's eastern limb. Here is the <a href="http://www2.lpod.org/wiki/January_28,_2006">map.</a>

1645: PAS Rheita: By misfortune his stylized and less informative map was published the same year as Langrenus's map. He emphasized mountains surrounding seas and Tycho's rays.

<img width="100" height="101" border="0" src="" />1646: Fontana: A poor, measly-looking <a href="">map</a> with stylized representations of small equal sized craters.

1647: Hevelius Selenographia Gdansk- The first reasonable accurate external image hevelius_luna.htm chart and [[image:http://www.coelum.com/calanca/hevelius_selenografia.htm}} description of the Moon, but with a nomenclature scheme that has been forgotten. Wilkins and Moore (1955) report that the copperplate used to print his map was made into a teapot! How fleeting is fame.

1649: E Divini: In many respects nothing more than a poor copy of the chart of Hevelius.

1651: GB Riccioli: Almagestum Novum, Bologna - Based on his friend <a href="http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/grimaldi.html">Grimaldi</a>'s observations, Riccioli's map established the present system of lunar names.

1662: G Montanari: First <a href="http://www.coelum.com/calanca/icon_lunaris.htm">map</a> to pay attention to the many craters in the southern highlands.

1665: Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was probably the earliest scientist to experimentally model the formation of lunar craters. In his 1665 book, Micrographia, the Englishman Hooke described experiments in which he dropped bullets into wet clay. He noted that the muddy splash crater so produced looked like features on the Moon, but he doubted that lunar craters formed in this manner because, "...it would be difficult to imagine whence those bodies [the projectiles] should come; and next, how the substance of the Moon should be so soft." Hooke also made "volcanic" craters by cooling boiled plaster of paris which preserved the bubbles. Ref: Bevan M. French (1977) The Moon Book. Penguin, p 57.

1680: Cassini: The best map of the 17th century; very detailed and three-dimensional representation. Perhaps the most attractive map of the Moon ever!