Bancroft
Contents
Bancroft (aka Gant)
(formerly Archimedes A)
| Lat: 28.0°N, Long: 6.4°W, Diam: 13 km, Depth: 2.49 km, Rükl: 21 |
Images
LPOD Photo Gallery Lunar Orbiter Images Apollo Images
A fully sunlit Bancroft was captured on Apollo 15's orbital ITEK-panoramic frames AS15-P-10216 and 10221 (scroll toward the right margins of both frames).
Research: Danny Caes
Maps
(LAC zone 41A4) LAC map Geologic map LM map LTO map
Description
Description: Wikipedia
Additional Information
- Depth data from Kurt Fisher database
- Westfall, 2000: 2.49 km
- Viscardy, 1985: 2.49 km
- The shadows in LO-IV-114H indicate a crater depth of about 2500 m. - Jim Mosher
Nomenclature
- Named for Wilder Dwight Bancroft (1867-1953), an American chemist.
- This replacement name for a formerly lettered crater was introduced on LTO-41A4 (for which it served as the chart title). The name was approved in 1976 IAU Transactions XVIB. - Jim Mosher
- Earlier, Hugh Percy Wilkins had suggested changing the name of Archimedes A to Gant, identified in Wilkins and Moore (1961 edition, p. 95) as a "contemporary American selenographer". This is almost certainly a reference to Dr. James Quincy Gant, Jr., a Washington, D.C.-based dermatologist, a member of many amateur astronomical organizations and a president of the International Lunar Society (a short-lived group founded by Wilkins and Antonio Paluzíe Borrell in 1956). Wilkins' annual reports on his activities to the BAA mention at least two visits by Gant to Wilkins' home. A report of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Science, New Series, vol. 129, p. 488, (Feb. 20, 1959)), mentions Gant as being "so famous as an amateur astronomer that a crater has been named after him". Similarly, when Gant died on September 2, 1989 at the age of 83, his obituary on page D7 of the September 7, 1989 issue of the The Washington Post noted that "In 1954, the lunar crater Archimedes A was renamed the Gant Crater by the lunar section of the British Astronomical Association," but failed to mention that Wilkins' suggestion for the name change was never approved by the IAU, and that since 1976 his crater had been to astronomers by a different name. - Jim Mosher
LPOD Articles
Bibliography
