posted 06-03-2009 01:55 PM               

Globemakers.com: Maxwell's Moon Globe

In the early sixties two Lunar globes were produced to show Russian superiority in the "Space Race". The Russians themselves produced a small Lunar Globe 26 cm in diameter, and the East German company, Rath Globen, produced with the help of the Russians a 33cm German version. Both these versions are well recorded.

However, there was another moon globe that should have been made by the infamous Robert Maxwell's company, Pergamon Press. It is not known if this globe was ever actually made beyond the preliminary acetate artworks, as both Rath and Pergamon Press have very vague archive information. Greaves & Thomas acquired these acetates from Rath Globen in order to produce this fine example of early planetary exploration. "Maxwell's Moon Globe" is 33cms (13") in diameter and is presented on a hand turned ebonised stand, similar in design to the original German example. It is a unique icon of the Space Race and its ensuing politics.

posted 07-15-2009 11:07 AM            

In the photo, it's on the back side, but if you look close enough the very end of it can be seen at the North Pole just below the medal stub. Since it didn't have the fancy stand like in the photo, the longitude markings were on a clear plastic strip wrapped around the equator like you find on most cheap earth globes.

posted 04-23-2012 06:17 AM               

Caltech Alumni Help Make Over the Moon

New lunar globe is a more accurate model of Earth's only natural satellite

An entirely new globe of the moon — the first in over 40 years — is now available, thanks, in part, to Caltech alumni. Using images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, a team at Sky & Telescope magazine, including senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty (BS '73), developed the updated model. In addition to publishing a monthly astronomy magazine, S&T also develops a variety of space-related products like globes, sky atlases, books, and posters.

Previous moon globes have used artistic renderings of the lunar surface. As Beatty noted in an S&T article, the surface detail on older models "doesn't look anything like what you'd see in the eyepiece [of a telescope] — there's little distinction between the dark lunar maria and the brighter highlands, for example. That old globe, while serviceable, just wasn't satisfying. So for years I've been prowling around for a suitable database of lunar photos to make a new one."

The hi-res photos that the team eventually used came from a modified version of the cameras designed for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and developed by Malin Space Science Systems, headed by Michael Malin (PhD '76). The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, launched aboard a NASA spacecraft in 2009, was used, in part, to assess meter-scale features of the moon and complete a global mapping effort with 100-meter resolution.

"The final mosaic consisted of more than 15,000 images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011, with the sun shining on the surface at incidence angles between 55° and 70° at the equator, lighting favorable for identifying surface features," writes Beatty.

After nearly a year of planning, the final result is an illustrated globe that actually looks like the moon, says Beatty, and includes over 850 labeled lunar features including craters, valleys, Apollo landing sites, and many more.