Peirescius

Lat: 46.46°S, Long: 67.81°E, Diam: 61.53 km, Depth: 3.68 km, Rükl 69, pre-Nectarian

Images

(LAC zone 115D3)

Named for Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637), a French astronomer, archaeologist. Along with Gassendi, Peiresc commissioned one of the first and best systematic series of drawingsof the Moon, with Claude Mellan as the artist. Its primary purpose was to facilitate the accurate timing of the passage of the Earth's shadow over the Moon's features during a lunar eclipse. Unfortunately he died before the project could be brought to completion. - Jim Mosher
- Prints of the Mellan engravings were displayed in an exhibit in Florence celebrating 400 years of the telescope.

Unusual brightness phenomena at Peirescius? See page 232 of Harold Hill's A Portfolio of Lunar Drawings (Cambridge, 1991).