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Walking on the moon

As we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the landing on the moon, the Royal Palace in Brussels is dedicating it's traditional summer exhibition to the moon.
Look at objects 21 and 22, showing two of the earliest maps of the moon. Interesting to note is that Apollo 11 landed in the so called Mare Tranquillitatis, named by the Italian astronomers Francesco Grimaldi and Giovanni Battista Riccioli in 1651. It was however Langrenus (Michael Florent van Langren, 1600-1675) who made the first map of the moon in 1645, naming the Mare Tranquillitatis … Mare Belgicum.
See also Luis Robles blog Historia y Mapas.

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