The Far Side of the Moon: A Photographic Guide

-book only

Our name for the half of the Moon that doesn’t face Earth – the farside – conveys a feeling of unreachable distance and strangeness. The farside has remained poorly known and little in the thoughts of either amateur or professional astronomers. Partly that is because we have had few good images of it, and the existing ones are hard to use. Now Charles Byrne has assembled images from Lunar Orbiter, some from Clementine and a small handful from Soviet and Japanese probes to create a photographic guide to the lunar farside. Those familiar with his 2005 Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Near Side of the Moon will feel at home in this companion volume. This Guide has the same advantages and drawbacks – it has a whole hemisphere of images in one convenient book, the annoying lines between Orbiter framelets have been removed, and there are interpretive captions. But the image scale varies from page to page, and it is difficult to find the pages for a feature of interest without using the names index. Few people other than professional lunar researchers probably need an atlas of the farside of the Moon, although it would spark interesting conversations when visitors spied it on a coffee table. But saying only professionals might need it ignores amateur astronomers and other dreamers who routinely buy books showing gorgeous views of features on Mars, which they will never see at the telescope. I am happy to add the new Byrne to my lunar library. But I also await a more homogeneous future atlas, perhaps compiled from Kaguya, Chang’e, and dare I hope, SMART-1 images. " Chuck Wood, LPOD (21 Jan 2008)

"This book covers the Moon’s dark side, and showcases many of the features imaged by the five US Lunar Orbiter probes of the mid 1960s. … Byrne, who worked on the Lunar Orbiter programme, has gone through the archives thoroughly, and his choice of images is excellent. … What’s more, all these images can be viewed on a CD-ROM included with the book, which makes for many hours of fascinating viewing. All things considered, this is a thoroughly recommended lunar work." (Peter Grego, BBC Sky at Night, March, 2008)

"The atlas is divided into a number of chapters, each of which is introduced with an overview of a selected region, followed by detailed images and brief comments about significant features. … Book and accompanying CD-ROM comprise an excellent reference of interest both to professionals and to laypersons who appreciate the intricate patterns and beauty of lunar topography. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; graduate students, researchers, and faculty." (D. E. Hogg, CHOICE, Vol. 45 (9), 2008)

"The atlas covers the whole of the Moon’s far side. The images have been skilfully ‘cleaned up’ … and they are beautifully reproduced as well as being annotated. … It is clear that the author has undertaken a tremendous amount of research, and the result is a book which must surely remain the standard in the foreseeable future. There is no other work which covers the subject so comprehensively or so well, and it should be included in every astronomical library." (Patrick Moore, The Observatory, Vol. 128 (1205), August, 2008)



Product Description

The far side of the Moon, also called the "dark side of the Moon" was unknown to humanity until the Luna and Lunar Orbiter pictures were returned to Earth.

Even since then, its nature has puzzled researchers. Now we know that a giant impact struck the near side with such force that it created the “near side megabasin”, opening the way for floods of mare and sending vast amounts of ejecta to the far side. The Far Side of the Moon explains this event and also documents the appearance of the features of the far side with beautiful pictures from Lunar Orbiter.

As in the previous volume, The Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Near Side of the Moon, the author has taken the original images and cleaned them of system artefacts using modern digital image processing. The best photographic coverage of the far side of the Moon has been the 150 photos taken by the Lunar Orbiter series. The other sources are pictures taken by the Apollo Command Module, which were limited to the equatorial regions, and the Clementine mission, which took pictures at a high sun angle that washed out the topography of the features. Until now, the far side Lunar Orbiter photos have only been available with strong reconstruction lines, but appear here for the first time as complete photographs, unmarred by imaging and processing artefacts.

Also, this is the first book to explain in detail how the far side was deeply covered by ejecta from the Near Side Megabasin and modified by later impacts.

A CD-R accompanies the book, and contains all the enhanced and cleaned photographs for use by the reader in screen viewing, lectures, etc..



See all Editorial Reviews

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Details
Hardcover: 220 pages
Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (December 6, 2007)
Language: English