After many decades spent in astronomical semi-obscurity, the Moon has of late suddenly emerged to claim renewed interest on the part of the students of astronomy, as well as of other branches of physical science and technology; and the reasons which brought this about are indeed of historical significance. From time immemorial, astronomy has been debarred from the status of a gen uine experimental science by the utter remoteness of the objects of its study. With the exception of meteors - those small freaks of cosmic matter intercepted by the Earth on its perpetual journey through space - the properties of all celestial bodies outside the gravitational confines of our planet could be studied only at a distance: namely, from the effect of attraction exerted by their masses; or from the ciphered message of their light brought to us by nimble-footed photons across the intervening gaps of space. A dramatic emergence of long-range rockets in the last decade bids fair to bring about a profound change in this situation. On September 13, 1959 - a memorable date in the history of human endeavour - a man-made missile of Russian origin crash landed on the surface of the Moon in the region of its Mare Imbrium, and thus ended the age-long separation of the Earth and its only natural satellite which lasted not less than 4t billion years.

Klappentext

Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Selenodesy and Lunar Topography held at the University of Manchester, England, May 30-June 4, 1966

Inhalt
I / Librations of the Moon.- Recent Researches on the Determination of the Moon's Physical Libration Constants, with Special Consideration of Cracow Investigations.- Cassini's Second and Third Laws.- The Moon's Mechanical Ellipticity: Schrutka-Rechtenstamm's and Habibullin's Artifice in the Light of the Reduction of the 1st Part of Bamberg Series.- The Moon's Rotation Constants and the Coordinates of Mösting A from the Heliometric Observations of Banachiewicz.- A Contribution to the Study of the Moon's Physical Libration in Longitude.- Lunar Physical Libration Theory.- Photographic Techniques for the Determination of the Moon's Constants of Rotation.- Discussion.- II / Selenodetic Observations and Measurements.- Selenodetic Observations an Introduction.- Lunar Research at the Kottamia Observatory.- A Selenodetic Evaluation of Eleven Paris Lunar Photographs.- Selenodetic Equipment for Observations of Three Annular Eclipses.- Note on a Photometric Determination of the Moon's Form from Eclipse Observations.- Lunar Profiles determined from the Annular Solar Eclipses of 1962 and 1963.- The Use of the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope for Selenodetic Observations.- Laser Measurement of Earth-Moon Distance and Selenography.- Investigating the Moon's Motion by Laser Ranging.- Discussion.- III / Shape and Gravitational Field of the Moon.- Harmonic Analysis of the Moon's Shape and Gravitational Field.- What can we say about the Shape of the Moon?.- Observational Uncertainties in Lunar Control Systems.- Control Integration for Lunar Mapping.- The Manchester Selenodetic Control System.- The LPL Program for Selenodetic Positions: Results and Comparison with Contemporary Selenodetic Work.- Estimate of Four Topocentric Lunar Radii.- Analysis of Satellite OrbitPerturbations to determine the Lunar Gravitational Field.- Lunar Gravity from Orbiter Tracking Data.- A Differential Orbit Improvement Program for Lunar Orbiter.- Discussion.- IV / Topography and Mapping of the Lunar Surfaces.- Photometric Methods for Determination of Lunar Relief.- Selenodesy for the Apollo Project.- Terminator Photography in Oblique Illumination for Lunar Topographic Work.- Measurements and Reductions of Relative Lunar Altitudes.- High-Resolution Lunar Photography.- Isodensitometric Aids to Lunar Charting.- Determination of the Moon's Shape by the Photometry of its Terminator.- Isodensitometric Measurements of Lunar Slopes from the Ranger Photographs.- Discussion.- Concluding Survey.- Index of Names.