Latest revision as of 02:09, 16 April 2018

Pickering

(formerly Pickering, E.)

Lat: 2.88°S, Long: 6.95°E, Diam: 15.4 km, Depth: 2.74 km, Rükl 45

Although Pickering is not mentioned in the LPI's search list for orbital Apollo photographs, this bowl shaped high-albedo crater WAS captured on several frames made by Apollo 16's mapping/metric Fairchild camera, such as AS16-M-0837, in which Pickering is the "second" or "right" one of the two bowl-shaped craters near the frame's centre.
It should be mentioned that a degree of reflected light on Pickering's shadowed eastern inner slopes is visible on the zoomify-scans of Apollo 16's Fairchild photographs, in the online Apollo Image Archive, created by the Arizona State University (ASU).
Pickering was also captured near the rightmost margins of Apollo 16's panoramic ITEK-camera frames AS16-P-5350 and AS16-P-5357.
Research orbital Apollo 16 photography: Danny Caes

IAU page: Pickering
Depth data from Kurt Fisher database
- - Arthur, 1974: 2.74 km
  - Westfall, 2000: 2.74 km
  - Viscardy, 1985: 2.74 km
  - Cherrington, 1969: 2.37 km
Included in ALPO list of bright ray craters
A thermal anomaly crater, implying a youthful age - Moore et al, 1980

The IAUname honors two brothers:
- Edward Charles Pickering (1846-1919), an American astronomer.
- William H. Pickering (1858-1938), also an American astronomer.

In Mary Blagg's Collated List of 1913, this crater (catalog entry 3607) is listed as having been known to all three authorities consulted as Hipparchus E.
In the original IAU nomenclature of Blagg and Müller (1935), the name for this catalog entry was changed to E. Pickering, with a notation that the replacement name had been introduced by Krieger (the 1935 nomenclature included a separate crater named for W. H. Pickering). The Nomenclature Commission reassigned the name Hipparchus E to a crater that had not appeared in the Collated List (catalog entry 3608b) -- although it had served as a control point for Saunder.
As part of the changes made by LPL in connection with their System of Lunar Craters (approved by the IAU in 1964), the name W. Pickering (formerly W.H. Pickering) was deleted, and apparently as result of later changes, the name E. Pickering was shortened to Pickering.
There does not seem to be any clear record of when the shortened name came to be regarded as honoring both brothers (multiple honorees were extremely rare in the former nomenclature), but it is listed that way in the IAU Planetary Gazetteer
E. C. Pickering was the 1908 Bruce Medalist of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and extensive links to information about him can be found there.

Bregante, Maria T. 2009. William Henry Pickering: The Canals in the Moon, Selenology Today No 12, p 43-51.
Edwards, D. L. 1939. Obituary Notices: Associates:- Pickering, William Henry. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 99, p. 328-329.
Pickering, W. H. 1892. Are there at present active volcanoes upon the Moon?. The Observatory, Vol. 15, pp. 250-254.
Pickering, W. H. 1895. "Visual and Photographic Observations of the Lunar Surface." Annals of the Harvard College Observatory. Vol. 32, starting on page 81.
Pickering, W. H. 1903. A photographic atlas of the moon. Cambridge, Mass: Published by the Observatory.
Pickering, William H. 1907. Lunar and Hawaiian physical features compared.

@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 * IAU page: [http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/4722 Pickering]
-* Depth data from [http://the-moon.us/wiki/Kurt%20Fisher%20crater%20depths Kurt Fisher database]
+* Depth data from [http://the-moon.us/wiki/Kurt%20Fisher%20Crater%20Depths Kurt Fisher database]
 *** Arthur, 1974: 2.74 km
 *** Westfall, 2000: 2.74 km