Good Moon Book?

[Ags]

I tried searching for a good Moon book on a popular shopping site, but all I got was a lot of junk about astrology and crystal magic...

I am trying to find a book that makes the Moon interesting. I do try to appreciate the Moon, but often feel it's just a lot of rubble... I don't need detailed maps with thousands of crater labels, I want less labels and more information about the objects. Does such a book exist?

[Nik271]

As a first approximation Turn left at Orion has several pages on the Moon with a good selection of objects to focus on in each lunar week.

But I havent seen a Moon book yet which fits exactly your description. Personally I'm going through  the Lunar 100 objects list and their articles in Wikipedia 🙂

[MarkRadice]

The Modern Moon by Charles Wood is thoroughly recommended. He writes for Sky and Telescope and came up with the Lunar 100. A well written book that explains why things look the way they do.  

[Tiny Clanger]

http://alanchuhk.com/Moonbook_3v5.pdf  is not bad for background info.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Tiny Clanger

[mikerr]

Luna Cognita by Robert A Garfinkle is about as complete a moon reference as you will find. This is a three volume set published by Springer books as a Print on Demand, and the quality is excellent. I have the three volume hard copy and the ebook version on my iPad. This is not an atlas but a full reference regarding everything Luna.

The Hatfield SCT Lunar Atlas Is a good companion to Luna Cognita. 

Michael

Edited July 9, 2022 by mikerr

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

3 hours ago, Ags said:

I tried searching for a good Moon book on a popular shopping site, but all I got was a lot of junk about astrology and crystal magic...

I am trying to find a book that makes the Moon interesting. I do try to appreciate the Moon, but often feel it's just a lot of rubble... I don't need detailed maps with thousands of crater labels, I want less labels and more information about the objects. Does such a book exist?

Patrick Moore - On the Moon  A fab read. 

Table of contents:

* The Eagle Has Landed; * Myth and Legend; * The Moon and the Solar System; * The Origin of the Moon; * The Movements of the Moon; * The Moon and the Earth; * Observers of the Moon; * Features of the Moon; * The Craters of the Moon; * The Past and Future Moon; * The Lunar Atmosphere; * The Structure of the Moon; * Eclipses of the Moon; * The Way to the Moon; * Apollo; * The Search for Ice; * Life in the Moon?; * The Lunar Base.

Edited July 9, 2022 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[Barry Fitz-Gerald]

'The Moon' by Bill Leatherbarrow available via that large South American river is a super book on lunar history and geology at a reasonable price with lots of up to date research and conclusions.

 

'Epic Moon: A History of Lunar Exploration in the Age of the Telescope' is really the best book on the history of lunar observing up to modern times -out of print but second hand copies can be found - if you are quick there is one available relatively cheaply on the American version of the above web-site for about £26 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FEL1HBA/ref=olp-opf-redir?aod=1&condition=used&tag=bookfinder-test-b2-20)

 

You can also learn a lot from 'To a Rocky Moon: A Geologist's History of Lunar Exploration' which might confirm your view that the moon is a rubble pile - but a very interesting one.

 

To give you an idea, I have read all three several times - they do stand re-reading very well as they as so well written and just plain interesting.

 

 

[Gfamily]

The OpenStax e book on Astronomy has a chapter on "cratered worlds" that might be of interest. 

Available online, as a pdf or as an ebook. 

https://openstax.org/books/astronomy-2e/pages/9-1-general-properties-of-the-moon

 

ETA: I expect you're already familiar with this,  but if you want information about specific features,  the Virtual Lunar Atlas has a brief summary available when looking at the map

https://ap-i.net/avl/en/start

Edited July 10, 2022 by Gfamily

[Paz]

The cambridge photographic moon atlas has a nice 25 page introduction to the moon covering geology, features, and a bit about observation and photography etc.

The rest of the book is epic photos with commentary mostly to do with what things are called and how they look rather than the science of what they are, but the intro is good.

Also the Kaguya Lunar Atlas is good and a different take on an atlas, with great photos and commentary.