February 2, 2011
The Classics
 image by Chuck Wood] |
These are the lunar books I started reading when I was learning the Moon in my 20s. I started with WIlkins and Moore, which was given to me by a friend. It's maps were too full of hard to read detail to be very useful for comparing with photos or using at a telescope, but reading the descriptions whetted my appetite to not just detect all the minute features described but to understand them. I have the invoice, dated 16 June, 1969, from when I bought Elger's The Moon for 30 shillings at Dawsons book shop on Pall Mall in London. This 1895 classic has four quadrant maps and concise descriptions of each named feature. We use Elger's descriptions in the Moon-Wiki. Can't remember where I got Goodacre's book, my favorite, but I did have it rebound a few years ago. It had a yellowing piece of lined paper glued in with these words, with the authors complts, & thanks, but no signature. I like this book because the 25 section maps are clean and still very useful, the descriptions are a little more lively than Elger's, and there are numerous simple drawings of features. Sadly, neither Goodacre nor Wilkins and Moore are online, but the 75 year copyright protection expired for Goodacre in 2006 so it could become legally available. But I don't care, I've got my hard copies and enjoy pulling them off the shelf and making some sort of physical connection with the authors!
|
Yesterday's LPOD: Green, but not Cheese
Tomorrow's LPOD: Smallsteps - Luna 9
COMMENTS?
Register, Log in, and join in the comments.
