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Those who explore the highways and byways of selenography (read: lunar map making and the nomenclature of the moon's surface formations) know that this hobby has many unexpected twists and surprises. Somewhere, I can't remember if it was online or in a magazine or book, I discovered the name Granollachs for a crater on the moon's near side. That crater turn'd out to be the inconspicuous looking Gauricus A at 13°30' West / 35°30' South, just southwest of Gauricus itself. Now I hear you thinking: OH YES, GAURICUS; THE CRATER JUST EASTWARD OF WURZELBAUER !!! (I wish it was true). Now, that enigmatic name Granollachs was incorporated in an alphabetic list of the 100-and-more additional names from Wilkins, Paluzie, Moore, Mee, McDonald, Arthur, Cameron, Hoag, Adams, and Nicholson (see also page 230 in Ewen A. Whitaker's book Mapping and Naming the Moon, a history of lunar cartography and nomenclature (1999). In Whitaker's book however, all 100-and-more of these additional names are indeed mentioned... but... sans Granollachs. Mystery! Who or what was Granollachs? Another mystery is the absence of the name Ataturk (Romer A) in Whitaker's book, although Ataturk was also one of Wilkins's new names, mentioned in his own book THE MOON (which is a goldmine for those who want to know the origin of the bunch of odd non-I.A.U. names on the Swiss Hallwag map of the moon, made by Hans Schwarzenbach). Now, those of you who could tell me more about the name Granollachs... well.. without really knowing it or without realizing it, you are at the threshold of a wonderful new hobby! (if you don't know what to do because of cloudy nocturnal skies... and your telescope with attached digital photographic apparatus is off duty... there's always the wonder of moon atlases, lunar charts, moonglobes, and alphabetic gazetteers of named lunar formations!). Danny Moon |
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| You know, this doesn't sound like my cup of tea. However, I always appreciate it when someone is passionate about something! Best of luck doing moon cartography! And answer your question. |
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| @Danny Caes Would you ever consider annotating lunar images with these details, so we have some visuals to go along with the text? Some interesting stuff...I read a couple of your other threads on the topic. Would be cool to see some of the imagery related to the craters. |
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Thanks Mitchell! (maybe some day... it will be your cup of tea too) (who knows...). I'll bring you your cup of lunar tea. Well, for me it all started around 1979 or 1980 while looking at the Swiss Hallwag map of the moon, hanging in my small observer's room (tiny refractor telescope, some astro-photographs on the walls, and... that moonmap). Suddenly I noticed the name Giner at the bowl shaped crater Posidonius P (just northwest of the prominent eye-catching walled plain Posidonius), and I thought: Giner? Many years later, while browsing through Patrick Moore's book New Guide to the Moon from 1976 (around 1990 I discovered it in a second hand bookstore) I noticed the same odd name Giner, and also a lot more mysterious names, mostly with a rather Spanish tune, such as Benitez (Pontanus C). Suddenly I was the inventor of a new hobby: looking for names and nicknames of lunar surface formations which were not accepted by the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.). Needless to say that from this moment onward, my nose could not be removed from all the moonbooks which had lunar maps in them! The zenith of my zealous quest was Charles Wood's and Jim Mosher's online MOON-WIKI project (Wikispaces), running from 2007 to 2017. I was in heaven (pardon: on the moon). Alas, near the summer of 2017, Wikispaces was a sinking boat, or rather: it went to the moon. What now? Thus... I started to collect names and nicknames of astronomical objects beyond the solar system (bye bye moon!). But... last year (2023) I discovered ASTROBIN, and guess what happened... my eyes captured the variety of telescopic digital Hi-Res photographs of the moon's surface! DILEMMA !!! I was very deeply involved in my search for the nomenclature of everything in the most remote sections of the universe, but... the moon had that strange effect on me again! The result of this strange effect is what you are reading now. Someday, my head will look like the moon. |
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To Jon Rista, Well, that would be very interesting! I love it to put much more additional info in printed and digitally created illustrations and photographs, and also on the white unprinted margins around texts in books! A book without additional notes from the reader is a dead book. I hate the sort of books that contain several white unprinted pages (unused paper!). Books should be horns of plenty! (truckloads of information!). Remember the good old telephone books and yellow pages? That sort of spirit of crowdedness I like very much! |
