1960 PHOTOGRAPHIC LUNAR ATLAS, WITH 281 ATLAS FOLIO IMAGES OF THE MOON'S SURFACE, TOGETHER WITH THE SUPPLEMENT OF 31 ADDITIONAL PLATES

KUIPER, G.P. Photographic Lunar Atlas. WITH: Orthographic Atlas of the Moon. Supplement Number One to the Photographic Lunar Atlas. Chicago / Tuscon: University of Chicago Press / University of Arizona Press, 1960. Two volumes. Oblong atlas folio (each approximately 18-1/2 by 22-1/2 inches), original red cloth, Orthographic Atlas post-bound.

First edition, civilian issue, of the Photographic Lunar Atlas (preceded by the printing for US Armed Forces), with 281 photographs on 230 sheets (the sheets measuring 18-1/2 by 22-1/2 inches), together with the first edition of the Orthographic Atlas, with 31 atlas folio plates.

The purpose of the Lunar Atlas was to provide the United States government with the most complete and best photographic coverage of the moon. These photographs proved to be invaluable for the planning and operational sites of later spacecraft missions to the moon. The atlas contains photographs taken at the observatories at Mount Wilson, Lick, McDonald, Yerkes and Pic Du Midi. They are reproduced lithographically, on large atlas folio sheets. Divided into three parts, the Atlas includes an introduction showing a subdivision of the Lunar surface into 44 fields and giving the names of the maria, mountain ranges and craters based on the system of Blagg and Muller; the main body of the Atlas, composed of four sheets per field (176 sheets), to which are added two additional sheets each for the four polar areas (184 sheets total); and 35 supplementary sheets. The Orthographic Atlas consists of the best photographs for each of the 44 fields in the earlier atlas overprinted with the rectangular xi-eta grid (adjusted to the correct librations for the photograph) at a spacing of 0.01 lunar radius, with colored lines of latitude and longitude at intervals of 2 degrees. These photographs of the central portion of the lunar disk exclude the limb zones.

The author, Gerard Kuiper, a professor for many years at the University of Chicago, is widely regarded as the father of modern planetary science. He was the dissertation advisor for Carl Sagan, and the namesake of the Kuiper Belt of asteroids past Neptune. In 1960 Kuiper founded the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, where he orchestrated the production of a new, more complete photographic lunar atlas. Eventually his team would produce three lunar atlases (a second supplement was published three years later focusing on the limb regions of the Moon). Without these efforts, the June 20, 1969 landing of Apollo 11 on the moon could not have occurred. "'Kuiper was one of the first scientists to focus almost exclusively on exploring the properties of planets,' said Dr. Richard Binzel, New Horizons co-investigator and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 'His work laid the foundation for the spacecraft missions of the late 20th and early 21st centuries'" (NASA). Preceded by the military issue released the same year. With stamps of "Convair Astronautics Library" and related call numbers on cloth.

First plate in Atlas with tears repaired with tape, plates otherwise in fine condition. Modest wear to cloth bindings. An important milestone on the path to the 1969 moon landing.