Lacus Autumni

(original IAU name: Mare Autumni; briefly known as Lacus Autumnae?)

Lat: 9.9°S, Long: 83.9°W, Diam: 183 km, Depth: km,[/R%C3%BCkl%2039 Rükl: 39]

The IAU name means "Lake of Autumn", a modernized form of Mare Autumni ("Autumn Sea") one of a set of "four seasons" names given by [/Franz Franz] in his Die Randlandschaften des Mondes (1913) to previously unnamed dark patches in this area. The others were [/Mare%20Veris Mare Veris] (Spring), [/Mare%20Aestatis Mare Aestatis] (Summer) and [/Mare%20Hiemis Mare Hiemis] (Winter). The relevant section of Franz' map is reproduced as Figure 7 in [/Baum%20and%20Whitaker%2C%202007 Baum and Whitaker, 2007] (p. 132).
In 1961 ([/IAU%20Transactions%20XIB IAU Transactions XIB]) the IAU approved certain changes in the boundary of the feature meant by this name, as introduced in [/PLA%20Table%20III Table III] of the [/Photographic%20Lunar%20Atlas Photographic Lunar Atlas] (1960). These were said to be necessary to restore it to the feature intended by Franz.
In 1970 ([/IAU%20Transactions%20XIVB IAU Transactions XIVB]), the IAU announced it was changing the name to Mare Autmunae, but by the time the complete list of revisions was published the spelling had reverted to "Lacus Autumni" [/Menzel%2C%201971 Menzel, 1971].
Called Lacus Autumnis in Charles J. Byrne's The Far Side of the Moon; a Photographic Guide (Springer, 2008).

LPOD Articles

[/Baum%20and%20Whitaker%2C%202007 Baum and Whitaker, 2007]
Coombs, CR & BR Hawke (1992) Pyroclastic deposits on the western limb of the Moon. Proc. Lunar Planet. Sci. 22, 303-312.

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