https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/first-map-moon Skip to main content Home User menu logged out * Subscribe * Sign in History Today August 2023 Subscription Offers Give a Gift Enter your keywords [Search ] [Search] Subscribe Search Toggle navigation Main menu * Home * The Magazine * Subscribe * Buy the Current Issue * The Archive * App * Reviews * Sign in Home Mini header menu * Search * Magazine * Latest * Subscribe [printnew] Subscribe Months Past The First Map of the Moon At 9pm on 26 July 1609, Thomas Harriot pointed his telescope at a five-day-old crescent moon. It made him the first person to train such an instrument on the skies and map the moon. Mathew Lyons | Published in History Today Volume 73 Issue 7 July 2023 Tudor astronomer Thomas Harriot's moon map dating from 1609.Cosmic: Thomas Harriot's moon observation, 1609. Max Alexander/Lord Egremont/ Science Photo Library To have one patron imprisoned in the Tower may be regarded as a misfortune; to have two looks like carelessness. Perhaps Thomas Harriot, Renaissance polymath and client of both Sir Walter Ralegh and Henry Percy, had good reason to direct his attention from worldly troubles. At 9 pm on Wednesday 26 July 1609, Harriot, then living in the grounds at Syon House, pointed his telescope at a five-day-old crescent moon. It made him the first person to train such an instrument on the skies and map the moon. Telescopes were the latest technology: one had first been patented the previous autumn in the Netherlands, and it's possible that Harriot had built his own. Not all his moon drawings survive, but a composite map from 1610 suggests he thought he was drawing coastlines and continents, islands and seas. It was his navigational and cartographic skill that drew him to Ralegh; he had lived for a year in Ralegh's Roanoke colony, where he learned the Algonquian language and studied their customs. Harriot never published, however. His work lay undiscovered until 1784; his moon map wasn't published until 1965. It thus seems apt that, although there is a crater on the moon named in Harriot's honour, it is on the far side, where no one can actually see it. England Related Articles MoonMap_160517-small.jpg The Map: The Moon, 1647 PU4839.jpg Time and Tides Popular articles Thomas Harriot's moon observation, 1609. The First Map of the Moon Illustration by Ben Jones Germany and the Yellow Star Recently published The Colossi of Memnon, illustration from Wonders of the Past, 1910. (c) Look and Learn/Bridgeman Images The Emperors for the Job Henry III depicted in stained glass, chapel of the Maison Dieu, 19th century. Photograph by Jim Linwood The Bloody End Illustration by Ben Jones Germany and the Yellow Star Most read 1. The First Map of the Moon 2. Germany and the Yellow Star 3. The Bloody End 4. The Menin Gate is Unveiled 5. Tlaloc X Get Miscellanies, our free weekly long read, in your inbox every week [ ] [ ] [Sign Up] Footer menu * About * Masthead * Contact * Jobs * Advertising * RSS feeds * Submit an Article * Back Issues * Binders * Cookie policy * Awards * Students * Privacy policy * Terms of Use * Twitter * Instagram (c) Copyright 2023 History Today Ltd. Company no. 1556332.