For the last 20 years of the 18th century, the German astronomer Johann Hieronymus Schroter studied the surface of the Moon. He produced two volumes of Selenotopographische Fragmente. The books contained individual studies of five distinct lunar regions and features.
These drawings contained details like ridges, numerous rills and domes, and tall mountains. Schroter found out that large craters were proportionately more shallow and flat-floored than smaller bowl-shaped ones.
However, the first modern investigation of the lunar surface appeared with the publication of a detailed map and book by Wilhelm Beer and Johann Madler.
The work was titled Der Mond and was released between 1834 and 1837. They succeeded in showing that the Moon was very different from the Earth. They also proposed that the Moon had no atmosphere, and hence no water. Their findings contradicted some of Galileo’s postulations.
Picture Credit : Google
