Introduction

Summary

This is not a guidebook to the Moon in the accepted sense, nor is it an instruction manual. It is, in effect, and as the title implies, a collection of drawings representative of various parts of the lunar surface and illustrative of different aspects of investigation which have been selected from the author's observing files covering more than 40 years.

In some respects, the choice of subjects depicted may not satisfy every reader and some may be disappointed that familiar objects such as Aristarchus, Copernicus, Plato and Theophilus, to mention a few, do not feature in these pages. This is because formations such as these were singled out for special study by earlier generations of observers. It has long been the present writer's contention that many equally deserving regions have not received anything like the same attention; accordingly he decided that some of these comparatively neglected areas should be included as warranting further study.

Not unnaturally, the present selection of some 95 regions represents features of especial interest to me, and the reader will find greater elaboration of the reasons for their selection in the notes which accompany the drawings. Suffice it to say at this point, that an early realisation that much remained to be done in mapping these wonderful landscapes led me to undertake serious lunar study almost from the commencement of my amateur observing.