Bowditch (crater)

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Crater characteristics
Bowditch (lower left) and Perel'man (near center) from Apollo 15. Note the portion of Lacus Solitudinis along the bottom edge to the left. NASA photo.
Coordinates	25.0° S, 103.1° E
Diameter	40 km
Depth	0.5 km
Colongitude	254° at sunrise
Eponym	Nathaniel Bowditch

Bowditch is a lunar crater that lies on the far side of the Moon, just beyond the eastern limb. It is located on a region of the lunar surface that is occasionally brought into view due to libration, but at such times the area is viewed from the edge and so not much detail can be observed. It lies just to the north of the small Lacus Solitudinis lunar mare, between Titius crater to the southwest and Perel'man crater to the east-northeast.

The rim of this crater is open to the southwest and the crater is elongated to the northeast, possibly due to a merged crater. The outer rim varies in height, with the most prominent sections being the southwest face and a ridge mount to the northwest. The interior floor has been flooded with basaltic-lava, an unusual feature for a crater on the far side. The interior floor is generally flat, and marked by a number of small craterlets. However there are some low ridges in the surface that are concentric with the inner wall. A formation of irregular ridges occupies most of the rim gap along the southwest.

1 Nearby craters
2 Satellite craters
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Nearby craters

Near the southern rim of this formation, at the northern edge of the Lacus Solitudinus, are four tiny craters that have been assigned individual names by the IAU. These are listed below.

Crater	Longitude	Latitude	Diameter	Name source
Bawa	25.3° N	102.6° E	1 km	African masculine name
Edith	25.8° N	102.3° E	8 km	English feminine name
Fairouz	26.1° N	102.3° E	3 km	Arabic feminine name
Karima	25.9° N	103.0° E	3 km	Arabic feminine name

[edit] Satellite craters

By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater mid-point that is closest to Bowditch crater.

Bowditch	Latitude	Longitude	Diameter
M	26.7° S	103.3° E	16 km
N	26.6° S	102.8° E	16 km

[edit] References

Andersson, L. E.; Whitaker, E. A., (1982). NASA Catalogue of Lunar Nomenclature. NASA RP-1097.
Blue, Jennifer (July 25, 2007). Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS. Retrieved on 2007-08-05.
Bussey, B.; Spudis, P. (2004). The Clementine Atlas of the Moon. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81528-2.
Cocks, Elijah E.; Cocks, Josiah C. (1995). Who's Who on the Moon: A Biographical Dictionary of Lunar Nomenclature. Tudor Publishers. ISBN 0-936389-27-3.
McDowell, Jonathan (July 15, 2007). Lunar Nomenclature. Jonathan's Space Report. Retrieved on 2007-10-24.
Menzel, D. H.; Minnaert, M.; Levin, B.; Dollfus, A.; Bell, B. (1971). "Report on Lunar Nomenclature by The Working Group of Commission 17 of the IAU". Space Science Reviews 12: 136.
Moore, Patrick (2001). On the Moon. Sterling Publishing Co.. ISBN 0-304-35469-4.
Price, Fred W. (1988). The Moon Observer's Handbook. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521335000.
Rükl, Antonín (1990). Atlas of the Moon. Kalmbach Books. ISBN 0-913135-17-8.
Webb, Rev. T. W. (1962). Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes, 6th revision, Dover. ISBN 0-486-20917-2.
Whitaker, Ewen A. (1999). Mapping and Naming the Moon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62248-4.
Wlasuk, Peter T. (2000). Observing the Moon. Springer. ISBN 1852331933.