[meteorite-list] Fwd: The Dark Side.. Oops!

From: Mark Bowling <minador_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:56:38 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <1319792198.55961.YahooMailNeo_at_web161402.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Hi Doug, Bernd & all:

That is an interesting word choice?(I was totally ignorant of that fellow too, thanks Doug).? Here's?another aspect I'm?wondering about Herschel's comment.? I didn't catch the "new moon" reference from when I read it years ago, up until I read Doug's post, I had?always imagined that he was describing a crescent or quarter phase.? And that he was using "dark side" to refer to the non-illuminated part of the nearside of the moon.? i.e. that he didn't see the volcano's on the "daylight" side of the lunar hemisphere, but could only detect the "volcanoes" on the non-illuminated side.? I can't remember for sure if his full entry mentions how the manifestation he perceived changed as the moon became more illuminated.

Could his?use of "dark side" have meant to refer to the non-illuminated part of the nearside of the moon?? Assuming that?"new moon" was?referring to 1/4 moon or less, which would display both light and darkness.? I had thought that the telescopes he built and used would have been good?enough in quality to?have led him to realize that the moon was a sphere and that the light/dark was caused by the orientation of the sun to the moon.
?
I can only assume that in his day nomenclature was very loose and that "dark side" could vary in meaning (i.e. the far side, or the nearside which is in shadow).? Is this making sense, or am I up too late??? ;-)
?
Best regards,
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
To: Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Cc:
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 5:27 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Fwd: The Dark Side.. Oops!

Bernd cited the great Astronomer William Herschel in 1787:

"April 19, 1787. I perceive three volcanoes in different places of
the? d a r k? s i d e? of the new moon."

Interesting word selection!
?
In 1780, it was said?about people's continuing misconceptions regarding the lighted portions of the moon:
?
"It has often been a matter of surprise to me, when viewing the moon through a good telescope, in the company of persons not accustomed to such observations, that wilst the cavities and eminences of the moon's surface appeared to me marked out with the utmost certainty by their light and shades, my companions generally conceived it to be a plain surface of various degrees of brightness.? The reason I suppose to be this; the astronomer knows from the moon's situation with respect to the sun, and even from the figure of its enlightened part, precisely in what direction the light falls on its surface, and therefore judges rightly of its hills and vallies [sic], from their different degrees of light, according to those rules which are imperceptably formed in the mind, and confirmed by long experience.?
?
But a person unacquainted with astronomy knows nothing of the direction of the sun's light on the moon, nor does he attend to the moon's globular figure, an is besides perhaps possessed with a notion of it being self-luminous; no wonder then that the same object has a very different effect on his imagination.? It seems to be those rules of judging, which we begin to form in our earliest infancy, which we set aside, reestablish, alter, correct and confirm, and at length rely on with the utmost confidence, even without knowing that we do so, or that we have any such rules: It is these rules, of such infinite general use to us, that sometimes mislead us on new and extraordinary occasions, and particularly in the case before us."
?
Ref:, Transactions APS, David Rittenhouse, of course
?
Six month's after observing an incredible bolide and two months after discussing?said bolide?with Ben Franklin with whom he hatched?first the specific correct cosmic origin of meteors and bolides ... which was correct.
?
Kindest wishes
Doug
?



?
-----Original Message-----
From: Bernd V. Pauli <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>
To: meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thu, Oct 27, 2011 5:03 pm
Subject: [meteorite-list] The Dark Side.. Oops!


Phil wrote:

"Do people still say 'dark side of the moon'
when referring to the far side of the moon?


Cometary Scars on the Moon? (S&T, January 1988, pp. 11-12):

Certain mysterious whitish blotches on the lunar surface may be
the scars of comet impacts, perhaps less than 100 million years old.
Known as lunar swirls, the markings appear primarily on the Moon's
f a r? s i d e
 Although more examples of these enigmatic features
exist on the Moon's? f a r? s i d e, only Reiner Gamma is easily
available for Earth-based study.

New Measures of the Moon (Sky & Tel, July 1995, pp. 32-33):

Zuber's team has combined Clementine's topography and gravity data to
estimate the thickness of the Moon's crust, confirming earlier hints that
it is thinner on the near side (60 km on average) than on the? f a r? s i d e
(68 km). But within some impact basins the crust has thinned dramatically.
It is thickest (nearly 120 km) on the? f a r? s i d e? between the South
Pole-Aitken and proposed Procellarum basins.

The Moon's Atmosphere (Sky & Telescope, June 1989, p. 589):

While instruments found argon, neon, and helium on the? d a r k? s i d e? and
the possibility of methane and ammonia at sunrise, the composition of the
daytime exosphere remained a mystery.

Lunar Volcanoes - William Herschel observed
lunar lights (Astronomy Now, April 1999, p. 58):

"April 19, 1787. I perceive three volcanoes in different places of
the? d a r k? s i d e? of the new moon."

Best wishes,

Bernd


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Received on Fri 28 Oct 2011 04:56:38 AM PDT