NASA SP-241

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NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon

(glossary entry)

Table of Contents

[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon]
[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon--Description Description]
[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon--Additional Information Additional Information]
[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon--Scanned Sections Scanned Sections]
[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon--The Catalog The Catalog]
[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon--Discrepancies with Current Nomenclature Discrepancies with Current Nomenclature]
[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon--LPOD Articles LPOD Articles]
[#NASA SP-241: Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon--Bibliography Bibliography]

Description

This book, prepared by the Mapping Sciences Laboratory of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston with the assistance of [/LPL LPL] selenographer [/Ewen%20Whitaker Ewen Whitaker], and published in 1971, is a forerunner of the latest version of the [/USGS%20Digital%20Atlas USGS Digital Atlas] of the Moon in the sense that it is a semi-independent effort to document the then-current [/IAU%20nomenclature IAU nomenclature] as accurately and completely as possible on a photographic base. More specifically, it was the result of an on-going effort to unambiguously indicate with dots on [/Lunar%20Orbiter Lunar Orbiter] images the locations of every feature name on the Moon’s nearside that might be used in planning Apollo missions. It includes the [/mons Greek-lettered peaks] and [/rima Roman-numeraled rilles] that the authors regarded as significant. Each name is carefully cross-referenced to the corresponding catalog number in [/Blagg%20and%20M%C3%BCller Blagg and Müller] and the "LPL list" (= [/System%20of%20Lunar%20Craters System of Lunar Craters]), and a complete list is given of every [/Lunar%20Orbiter Lunar Orbiter IV] photograph in which that feature was imaged and labeled. It also includes a list of images from other Lunar Orbiter missions on which selected features can be seen.

Additional Information

When first published, this book received a rather critical review by Don Wilhelms of the [/USGS USGS], citing many errors (some brought to his attention by Whitaker himself). Oddly, it is not mentioned in Whitaker’s own otherwise comprehensive book on the history of lunar mapping and nomenclature.
 
  Added note: I had the job of checking all the nomenclature for this book before it was published. When I finished, Ewen and I went to JSC in Houston (we were both at the Lunar Lab in Tucson then) to let Danny Kinsler know the results. Sadly, my copy of 241 has disappeared. - tychocrater tychocrater Jun 24, 2007

Scanned Sections

  • [/SP-241%20-%20A%20SHORT%20HISTORY%20OF%20LUNAR%20NOMENCLATURE Section I - A Short History of Lunar Nomenclature]
  • [/SP-241%20-%20Index%20IV Index IV: Lunar Orbiter Coverage] (images not used in book)
  • [/SP-241%20-%20Index%20V%2C%20Part%201 Index V: Notes (Part 1 - Name Changes)]
  • [/SP-241%20-%20Index%20V%2C%20Part%202 Index V: Notes (Part 2 - Errors in LAC Maps)]
  • [/SP-241%20-%20REFERENCES References (from Section II)]


The Catalog

The following is a preliminary scan of the Index to the labeled images in SP-241, which also serves as a nearside feature names catalog and a feature-based index to the [/Lunar%20Orbiter Lunar Orbiter IV] imagery.
  • [/file/view/SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt/81936193/SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt]
    [/file/view/SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt/81936193/SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt]
    • [/file/detail/SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt Details]
    • [/file/view/SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt/81936193/SP241_Catalog_tabbed.txt Download]
    • 361 KB
    (361 kb; revised 2009 July 22)


  • Note: [/Ewen%20Whitaker Ewen Whitaker] circulated a list of errata which have been corrected in this version of the scanned catalog, but there are still many scanning/optical character recognition errors, and SP-241 itself contains many errors not on Whitaker's list.


The Index consists of lines with five data fields separated by tab characters. It can be read as a text file, but will display more clearly if downloaded to disk and opened with a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel or its Open Office equivalent.

The five data fields represent:

  • FEATURE IDENT. - [/IAU IAU]-approved name of feature
  • B&M - catalog number (if any) of feature in Blagg & Müller's [/Named%20Lunar%20Formations Named Lunar Formations]
  • LPL - catalog number (if any) of feature in the "[/LPL LPL] list" ([/System%20of%20Lunar%20Craters System of Lunar Craters])
  • LONG. - selenographic longitude (unfortunately not given for all features)
  • LAT. - selenographic longitude (unfortunately not given for all features)
  • PHOTO NO. - frame numbers from Lunar Orbiter IV on which the feature is identified in the illustrated portion of the book


Fields which are blank in the text are filled with the character string "-999". These can easily be restored to blanks using the spreadsheet's Search/Replace function, if desired. SP-241 does not list diameters or any other characteristics of the features depicted.

Discrepancies with Current Nomenclature

Although not an [/IAU IAU] publication, NASA's SP-241 seems to have been regarded as the perfection of the [/System%20of%20Lunar%20Craters System of Lunar Craters], and was acknowledged in the IAU's 1973 [/IAU%20Transactions%20XVA Reports on Astronomy] as "the best summary, to date, of lunar nomenclature for the near side of the Moon."
 
  Unfortunately the current [/IAU%20Planetary%20Gazetteer IAU Planetary Gazetteer] originates from different sources, with the [/lettered%20craters lettered craters], in particular, having been added based on their listings in the non-IAU-approved catalog [/NASA%20RP-1097 NASA RP-1097]. RP-1097 changed and/or dropped many of the nearside lettered designations, added letters for the farside, and adopted certain changes to non-lettered feature nomenclature recommended by the IAU subsequent to the publication SP-241. It is therefore of some interest to see how the current [/IAU%20nomenclature IAU nomenclature] differs for the older IAU-approved nomenclature represented by SP-241, and used on many older maps (such as [/R%C3%BCkl Rükl]) that, in trying to conform to the then-current IAU standards, may have chosen to ignore the NASA-recommended (but unapproved) changes of RP-1097.
 
  It should perhaps be noted that SP-241 itself differs substantially for the original IAU-nomenclature of [/Blagg%20and%20M%C3%BCller Blagg and Müller], reflecting many changes introduced in the IAU approved[/System%20of%20Lunar%20Craters System of Lunar Craters].
 
  The following is a preliminary computer-generated list of discrepancies between the nearside lunar nomenclature of the current [/IAU%20Planetary%20Gazetteer IAU Planetary Gazetteer] and the nearside earlier nomenclature archived in SP-241:
  • [/file/view/SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt/81939517/SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt]
    [/file/view/SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt/81939517/SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt]
    • [/file/detail/SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt Details]
    • [/file/view/SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt/81939517/SP-241_vs_IAU_Gazetteer_printout.txt Download]
    • 169 KB
    (169 kb; revised 2009 July 22)



LPOD Articles


Bibliography

  • Gary L. Gutschewski, Danny C. Kinsler and Ewen Whitaker (1971). Atlas and gazetteer of the near side of the moon. Washington: Scientific and Technical Information Office, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA SP-241, 538 pp.)
  • Whitaker, Ewen A. (1999) [/Whitaker Mapping and naming the moon]: a history of lunar cartography and nomenclature. Cambridge University Press.



This page has been edited 1 times. The last modification was made by - tychocrater tychocrater on Jun 13, 2009 3:24 pm - mgx1
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