Lunar Meteoroid Impacts and How to Observe Them Author: Brian Cudnik Publisher: Springer ISBN: 978-1-4419-0323-5 Price: £24.99 (Pb), 239pp
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The 18 November 1999 Leonid Meteor Storm allowed amateur astronomers, for the first time, to record something new occurring on the lunar surface. The sheer volume of meteors streaming through the Earth–Moon environment meant that observers positioned where I was (in the Sinai desert) could count almost one meteor every second and observers elsewhere, where the Moon was above the horizon, could detect a dozen or so faint flashes on the Moon’s unlit portion. These flashes were the result of the largest Leonid chunks hitting the Moon and they appeared as third to eighth magnitude pinpoints. Some of these impacts were seen visually and some were recorded on video, such as those captured by David Dunham in the USA. The author of this book, Brian Cudnik, was a witness to one of those flashes. The successful recording of these lunar meteoroid impacts revived interest amongst a small group of lunar observers in this observing niche and much of this book is spent describing the techniques necessary to record these very rare events. Every piece of hardware and software and every technique the digital or visual observer might want to use, to detect lunar impacts, is covered in the book.

Of course, in practice, the vast majority of amateur astronomers are probably not that interested in such a painfully tedious waiting game, even if the lunar patrolling can be fully automated. Recognising this, much of the book covers associated topics such as a history of major lunar cratering events, crater geology, the enigmatic 1178 AD event, the Shoemaker–Levy 9 Jupiter impact, a guide to observing craters, various tables of possible faint impact events and some discussion of the controversial topic of transient lunar phenomena (TLP).

This book is very comprehensive and a lot of work has gone into it, but I suspect that only the die-hard lunar observing specialists will feel inclined to add it to their bookshelves.

Martin Mobberley