The earliest maps of the moon |
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| Authors: | Zdeněk Kopal |
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| Institution: | (1) Dept. of Astronomy, University of Manchester, England |
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| Abstract: | The aim of the present paper is to give a brief account of the history of lunar mapping in the pre-telescopic era, and that immediately following the discovery of the telescope. It is pointed out that the first (and also last) extant map of the Moon based on naked-eye observations was prepared some time before 1603 by William Gilbert - discoverer of the terrestrial magnetism - though it was published only posthumously in 1651. Moreover, the recently unearthed drawings of the Moon by Thomas Harriott in England based on telescope observations between 1609 and 1610 are in no way inferior (if not otherwise) than those published by Galileo Galilei at the same time. As G. C. La Galla's drawings of the Moon published in Venice in 1612 are in reality identical with those of Galileo, the third independent contribution to lunar mapping was made by P. Christoph Scheiner in Germany between 1611 and 1613; preceding those by C. Malapert (1916) or Gassendi and Mellan more than twenty years later. |
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