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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.
List of contents
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.
