Familiar and mysterious by equal measure, Earth's constant companion has fascinated astronomers for generations, none more so than the late Sir Patrick Moore. This new volume, collecting the best of the lunar observing columns Patrick wrote for BBC Sky at Night Magazine, is the ideal aid for your explorations of our Moon. Learn all about our natural satellite, then see why it enchanted our editor emeritus for yourself.

WELCOME

PATRICK’S PERSPECTIVES Once a Moon man always a Moon man • How a view through a telescope as a boy kindled a life-long love of our planet’s only natural satellite

OUR CONSTANT COMPANION • A familiar sight in our skies from ancient times, the Moon is threaded through humanity’s history

MOONS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM • How our natural satellite compares with the other moons in our neighbourhood

MEADE INSTRUMENTS ASTRONOMY FOR ALL! • The year is 1972. Though he doesn’t know it yet, at the heart of John Diebel’s one-man US mail order operation, lies the inception of one of the most prominent optics brands of the 20th and 21st centuries. Meade.

SIZING UP THE MOON • Our neighbour looks great through a scope, but at over 380,000km away it's hard to get a sense of how big its standout features really are – unless you compare them

MOUNTAINS ON THE MOON • The Moon doesn’t lack spectacular mountains for you to take a peak at

PATRICK’S PERSPECTIVES Changing craters and shifting seas • The Moon’s pockmarked surface tells the story of its many encounters with meteors and volcanic lava

THE BASICS OF LUNER OBSERVING • Explore the seas and craters that texture the lunar surface with our beginners’ observing guide

THE MANY GUISES OF THE MOON • Even to the naked eye, our satellite is a beguiling subject

THE BIG MYTH • The Moon illusion

THE RAREST MOON

MOONWATCH Northeast • Our Moonwatch columns begin in the northeast – a region dominated by vast maria, home to the Apollo 11 landing site, plus a crater that managed a mysterious disappearing act

Mare Humboldtianum

Mare Frigoris

Crater Endymion

Crater Cleomedes

Crater Linné

Mare Crisium

Crater Proclus • Words: Patrick Moore

Mare Vaporum

Mare Marginis

Mare Tranquillitatis

THE MOON’S TRUE COLOURS • More than just a silvery circle in the sky, our Moon’s mineral deposits grant it many glorious shades

CAUSES OF COLOUR • The Moon’s shades differ due to deposits of minerals

WOOD’S SPOT

Southeast • We move now to the much more heavily cratered southeast, where you’ll find a scarp once thought to be a mountain, imposing crater chains and Messier’s ‘comet’

Craters Messier & Messier A

Crater Langrenus

Crater Theophilus

Mare Nectaris

Crater Vendelinus

Crater Catharina

Rupes Altai

Crater Petavius

Mare Australe

Craters Steinheil & Watt

Discover the valleys of the Moon • Explore the cracks and troughs that wind across the lunar surface with our detailed observing guide

MOONWATCH Northwest • In this quadrant you’ll find some of the Moon’s best-known features – the glorious ray-crater Copernicus, darkfloored Plato, and the lunar Alps. Alongside them is a crater once thought to be full of vegetation

Crater Pythagoras

Sinus Roris

Crater Plato

The Straight Range

Sinus Iridum

Crater Archimedes

Palus Putredinus

Crater Aristarchus

The Lunar Apennines

Montes Carpatus

Crater Eratosthenes

Crater Copernicus

Explore the lunar domes • Track down these enigmatic features on the lunar surface for a glimpse of the Moon’s past...