Craters on Earth’s Moon beginning with the letter D.
Return to The Full Moon Atlas and Crater Catalog
| FEATURE NAME | LAT | LON | DIA (KM) | NAME ORIGIN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D'Alembert | 50.8N | 163.9E | 248 | Jean-le-Rond ~ (1717-1783), French mathematician and astrophysicist; a friend of Lagrange (q.v.), he published "d'Alembert's principle" in Traité de Dynamique (1743), which was a powerful new interpretation of Newton's Third Law. He also studied physical astronomy, in which he solved the precession of the equinoxes, and was the first to find and solve the wave equation. |
| d'Arrest | 2.3N | 14.7E | 30 | Heinrich Ludwig ~ (1822-1875), German astronomer; discovered 342 N.G.C. objects, mainly with an 11-inch refractor. As a graduate assistant at Urania Observatory, Berlin, he was working with Johann Gaul (q.v.) on the night that Neptune was discovered. |
| d'Arsonval | 10.3S | 124.6E | 28 | Jacques Arsene ~ (1851-1940), French physicist; a pioneer in electrotherapy, he studied the use of high-frequency currents in medical applications. Among his inventions were dielectric heating and various measuring devices, including the thermocouple ammeter and moving-coil galvanometer, which helped establish the science of electrical engineering. The galvanometer, which he invented in 1882 for measuring weak electric currents, became the basis for almost all panel-type pointer meters. |
| Daedalus | 5.9S | 179.4E | 93 | Greek mythological character; a skilled craftsman and inventor, he helped Minos' daughter elope with Theseus. Minos punished him by imprisoning him and his son, Icharus (q.v.), in the Labyrinth. Daedalus made two pairs of wings from feathers, wax and thread. He and Icharus flew from the Labyrinth, but Icharus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. He plunged into the sea and died. |
| Dag | 18.7N | 5.3E | 0 | Scandinavian male name. |
| Daguerre | 11.9S | 33.6E | 46 | Louis ~ (1789-1851), French artist, photographer and chemist; developed the pioneering method of photograph processing known as "Daguerreotype." |
| Dale | 9.6S | 82.9E | 22 | Sir Henry Hallett ~ (1875-1968), British physiologist; shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in medicine with Otto Loewi (q.v.) "for their discoveries relating to chemical transmission of nerve impulses." |
| Dalton | 17.1N | 84.3W | 60 | John ~ (1766-1844), British chemist and physicist; the first to provide a scientific description of color blindness (1794), a condition from which he suffered and which was long referred to as "Daltonism." He recorded over 200,000 observations of the atmosphere in his notebooks, and studied mixed gases and the expansion of gases under heat; Dalton's Law is still used to describe the law of partial pressures in chemistry. This work led him to his most important theoretical contribution to chemistry, a scientifically grounded atomic theory of matter. |
| Daly | 5.7N | 59.6E | 17 | Reginald Aldworth; Canadian geologist (1871-1957); served as an instructor in geology at Harvard (1898-1901), from which he had received his M.A. (1893) and Ph.D. (1896), following which he began a six-year stint as field geologist with the Canadian International Boundary Commission. Daly taught physical geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1907-1911, then accepted the position of Sturgis-Hooper Professor of Geology at Harvard, which he retained until his retirement in 1942. |
| Damoiseau | 4.8S | 61.1W | 36 | Baron Marie Charles Théodore de ~ (1768-1846), French astronomer. |
| Daniell | 35.3N | 31.1E | 29 | John Frederick ~ (1790-1845), British physicist, chemist, educator and meteorologist; first professor of chemistry and meteorology at the then-new King's College of London (1831-1845). Devised the first two-fluid class battery (1836), the first battery that produced a constant reliable source of electrical current over an extended period of time. His research also led to the invention of a dew-point hygrometer (1820) that measured relative humidity and later became a standard instrument. |
| Danjon | 11.4S | 124.0E | 71 | Andre Louis ~ (1890-1967), French astronomer; devised a method to measure "Earthshine" on the Moon using a telescope in which a prism split the Moon's image into two identical side-by-side images. By adjusting a diaphragm to dim one of the images until the sunlit portion had the same apparent brightness as the earthlit portion on the unadjusted image, he could quantify the diaphragm adjustment, and thus had a real measurement for the brightness of Earthshine. He recorded the measurements using his method (now known as the Danjon Scale, on which zero equates to a barely visible Moon) from 1925 until the 1950s. |
| Dante | 25.5N | 180.0E | 54 | Durante Alighieri, or ~ (1265-1321), Italian nobleman, philosopher and poet; his lasting contributions to literature include Purgatorio, Paradiso Inferno, Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), Vita nuova (New Life), Convivio (The Banquet), Rime (Rhymes) and Il Fiore (The Flower). |
| Darío | 11.3S | 90.7E | 19 | Rubén ~, nom de plume of Felix Rubén Garcia Sarmiento (1867-1916), Nicaraguan author, poet, journalist, and diplomat; his first collection of poetry, Azul (1888) won him acclaim throughout South America. His most notable collection, Prosas Profana y Otros Poemas (Profane Prose and Other Poems), was published in 1896. Poema del Otono (1910) is often considered Darío's finest piece. |
| Darney | 14.5S | 23.5W | 15 | Maurice ~ (1882-1958), French astronomer. |
| Darwin | 20.2S | 69.5W | 120 | Charles ~ (1809-1882), British natural scientist; following a five-year scientific journey along the coast of South America, and especially on the Galápagos Islands, he published his observations in A Naturalist's Voyage on the Beagle (1839). Darwin, reflecting on his observation, developed a theory of evolution. According to this theory, individual variability means that some organisms have a slight advantage over others. The advantage will allow the organisms to compete better in the "struggle for existence" and produced more offspring, which will inherit the advantageous qualities. Darwin called the process "natural selection," whereby favorable traits in the most "fit" animals allow them to survive and reproduce. |
| Das | 26.6S | 136.8W | 38 | Amil K. ~ (1902-1961), Indian astronomer. |
| Daubrée | 15.7N | 14.7E | 14 | Gabriel-Auguste ~ (1814-1896), French geologist; his brilliant experimental researches at Strasburg and later at Paris served to make him famous in the annals of geology. They comprised the artificial production of minerals, the geological action of superheated aqueous vapor, the effect of mutual abrasion, and the influence of pressure and strain in mountain-making. From 1857-1861 he made a detailed study of the hot springs of Plombières, observing the chemical action of thermal waters. In 1861 he was admitted to the Académie des Sciences and succeeded Cordier (q.v.) as professor of geology at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and as curator of collections; to the latter he made extensive additions, particularly of meteorites. Daubréelite (CrS), a grayish granular mineral found in meteoric iron, was named after him. |
| Davisson | 37.5S | 174.6W | 87 | Clinton Joseph ~ (1881-1958), American physicist; while working as a research physicist for Bell Telephone Laboratories (New York), he was awarded the 1937 Nobel Laureate in physics, along with Sir George Paget Thomson, "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals." His fundamental work was the foundation for much of today's solid-state electronics. |
| Davy | 11.8S | 8.1W | 34 | Sir Humphry ~ (1778-1829), British chemist and physicist; proved that it was not using two different metals that made the "Voltaic Pile" work; the electricity was actually caused by the chemical reaction caused by the cloth soaked in brine that Volta (q.v.) had used to increase conductivity. Davy was able to create an electric current from the same metal in two different fluids with the metal in each fluid touching. Davy also used the Voltaic Pile to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen, and used the same method to decompose several compounds which led to his discovery of several new elements. |
| Dawes | 17.2N | 26.4E | 18 | Reverend William Rutter ~, R.A.S. (1799-1868), British theologian, physician and astronomer; moved to Liverpool in 1826 where he was to meet William Lassell (q.v.) with whom he struck up a lifelong friendship. In 1829, Dawes took up astronomy and the study of binary stars in earnest. Sir John Herschel (q.v.) was to become Dawes' friend and mentor. Dawes improved on Herschel's own double star work by introducing refinements to his telescope, a 3.8-inch Dolland refractor, and as a result was able to make more accurate observations of binaries. Renowned for his observational prowess, he was often referred to as "Eagle-Eye Dawes." |
| Dawson | 67.4S | 134.7W | 45 | Dr. Bernhard H. ~ (1890-1960), Argentinean astronomer; noted variable star observer. For his discovery of Nova Puppis 1942, he was presented the Nova Award Medal. |
| De Forest | 77.3S | 162.1W | 57 | Dr. Lee ~ (1873-1961), American inventor; as an independent inventor, he received over 180 patents. His most important work advanced the field of radio broadcasting, including his invention of the Audion, a triode vacuum tube incorporating a filament and a plate, like ordinary vacuum tubes, but also a grid between the filament and plate; the Audion strengthened the current through the tube, amplifying weak telegraph and radio signals. De Forest also developed a feedback circuit to increase the output of a radio transmitter and produce alternating current, as well as a method of placing "sound on film" for motion pictures that became standard in the industry. |
| De Gasparis | 25.9S | 50.7W | 30 | Annibale ~ (1819-1892), Italian astronomer; director of the Observatory of Naples (Capodimonte) beginning in 1864. Discovered the asteroids 10 Hygeia and 11 Parthenope. |
| de la Rue | 59.1N | 52.3E | 134 | Warren ~ (1815-1889), British astronomer, scientist and inventor; a pioneer in celestial photography, he adapted the wet-plate process to lunar photography and invented a photoheliograph (1858), the first device to produce good quality solar pictures. His photographs of a solar eclipse in 1860 demonstrated that prominences observed at the sun's edge are of solar origin. De la Rue is known also for his research in chemistry, solar physics, and electrical discharge through gases. Among his inventions were an envelope-folding machine (1851). |
| De Moraes | 49.5N | 143.2E | 53 | A. ~ (1916-1970), Brazilian astronomer. |
| De Morgan | 3.3N | 14.9E | 10 | Augustus ~ (1806-1871), British mathematician and astronomer, born in India; the first person to define and name "mathematical induction" and developed De Morgan's Rule to determine the convergence of a mathematical series. His definition of a limit was the first attempt to define the idea in precise mathematical terms. In addition, he also devised a decimal coinage system, an almanac of all full moons from 2000 B.C. to 2000 A.D., and a theory on the probability of life events which is used by insurance companies. His most important work, Formal Logic, included the concept of the quantification of the predicate, an idea that solved problems that were impossible under the classic Aristotelian logic. |
| de Roy | 55.3S | 99.1W | 43 | Felix ~ (1883-1942), Belgian astronomer; observed and recorded more than 5,000 variable stars during his career. |
| de Sitter | 80.1N | 39.6E | 64 | Willem ~ (1872-1934), Dutch astronomer; spent most of his career at the University of Leiden, where he directed and expanded the astronomy program. Worked extensively on the motions of the satellites of Jupiter, determining their masses and orbits from decades of observations. He redetermined the fundamental constants of astronomy and determined the variation of the rotation of Earth. He also performed statistical studies of the distribution and motions of stars, but is best known today for his contributions to cosmology. Awarded the 1931 Bruce Medal. |
| de Vico | 19.7S | 60.2W | 20 | Francesco ~ (1805-1848), Italian astronomer and mathematician; as director of the observatory of the Collegio Romano, he discovered the comets 54P/de Vico-Swift (1844) and 122P/de Vico (1846). |
| De Vries | 19.9S | 176.7W | 59 | Hugo M. ~ (1848-1935), Dutch botanist; best known for his studies on mutations. As professor of botany at the University of Amsterdam, he was one of the three scientists who independently rediscovered and confirmed the laws of heredity as presented by Gregor Mendel (q.v.). |
| Debes | 29.5N | 51.7E | 30 | Ernest ~ (1840-1923), German cartographer; creator of legendary maps, including a well-known atlas of the Moon. |
| Debye | 49.6N | 176.2W | 142 | Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus ~, or Peter "Pie" ~ (1884-1966), Dutch physicist and chemist; his first major scientific contribution (1912) was the application of the concept of dipole moment to the charge distribution in asymmetric molecules, developing equations relating dipole moments to temperature, dielectric constant, etc. In consequence, molecular dipole moments are measured in debyes, a unit named in his honor. Also in 1912, he extended Albert Einstein's (q.v.) theory of specific heat to lower temperatures, using Max Planck's (q.v.) quantum concept. in 1913, he extended Niels Bohr's (q.v.) theory of atomic structure, introducing elliptical orbits, a concept also introduced by Arnold Sommerfeld (q.v.). In 1914-1915, he calculated the effect of temperature on X-ray diffraction patterns of crystalline solids with Paul Scherrer. In 1923, with his assistant Erich Hückel, he developed an improvement of Svante Arrhenius' (q.v.) theory of electrical conductivity in electrolytic solutions. Awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in chemistry "for his contributions to the study of molecular structure," primarily due to his work on dipole moments and X-ray diffraction. |
| Dechen | 46.1N | 68.2W | 12 | Ernst Heinrich Karl von ~ (1800-1889), German geologist, mineralogist and cartographer; as director of the Prussian state mining department, he furthered the development of mining and metallurgical works in Westphalia and northern Europe. Authored numerous books on geology and mining, and published a geological map of Germany. |
| Defoe | 6.0S | 80.5E | 18 | Daniel ~, born Daniel Foe (c. 1661-1731), British author; considered the founder of the English novel. Author of Robinson Crusoe, he produced about 200 works of nonfiction prose in addition to nearly 2,000 short essays. |
| Delambre | 1.9S | 17.5E | 51 | Jean-Baptiste Joseph ~ (1749-1822), French mathematician, astronomer and author; in 1771, he tutored the son of M. d'Assy, the Receiver-General of Finances; in 1788, d'Assy built an observatory for Delambre, in which he composed his Tables du Soleil, de Jupiter, de Saturne, d'Uranus et des satellites de Jupiter (1792). He served at the Bureau des Longitudes from 1795 and measured the arc of the meridian extending from Dunkirk to Barcelona. In 1807, Delambre was appointed to the chair of astronomy at the Collège de France in Paris, and also served as treasurer to the Imperial University from 1808. |
| Delaunay | 22.2S | 2.5E | 46 | Charles-Eugene ~ (1816-1872), French astronomer; published the most comprehensive lunar theory of his time, a two-volume treatise spanning 1800 pages. Delaunay took nearly 20 years to perform his calculations, which were published in 1860 and 1867. |
| Delia | 10.9S | 6.1W | 2 | Greek female name. |
| Delisle | 29.9N | 34.6W | 25 | Joseph-Nicolas ~ (1688-1768), French astronomer; proposed that the series of colored rings sometimes observed around the Sun is caused by diffraction of sunlight through water droplets in a cloud. He also worked to find the distance of the Sun from the Earth by observing transits of Venus and Mercury across the face of the Sun. Lived for 22 years in Russia, where he was the founder of the Petersburg Observatory. |
| Dellinger | 6.8S | 140.6E | 81 | John Howard ~ (1886-1962), American physicist and radio pioneer; from 1907 to 1948, he held successive posts at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D. C., including physicist; chief, radio section; and chief, Central Radio Propagation Laboratory. During 1928-1929, he was also chief engineer of the Federal Radio Commission. He served as a representative of the United States Department of Commerce on the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee from 1922 to 1948; and as a representative of the United States at numerous international radio conferences. Dellinger was appointed vice-president of the International Scientific Radio Union in 1934. In 1950 he became chairman of Study Group 6 on Radio Propagation of the International Radio Consultative Committee. He was appointed chairman of the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics in 1941, and held the same position on the Radio Technical Commission for Marine Services beginning in 1947. |
| Delmotte | 27.1N | 60.2E | 32 | Gabriel ~ (1876-1950), French astronomer. |
| Delporte | 16.0S | 121.6E | 45 | Eugene J.; Belgian astronomer (1882-1955); the celestial sphere is divided according to a plan he prepared (Delimitation Scientifique des Constellations) in 1930, with the boundaries fixed by the International Astronomical Union along lines of right ascension and declination. |
| Deluc | 55.0S | 2.8W | 46 | Jean Andre ~ (1727-1817), Swiss businessman, geologist and meteorologist; made numerous scientific excursions in the Alps, on whose natural history he became an authority. Deluc held the doctrine of catastrophism to explain present geological formations, opposing the view that present processes acted continuously during past ages. |
| Dembowski | 2.9N | 7.2E | 26 | Baron Ercole ~ (1815-1881), Italian astronomer and nobleman; noted astronomer of Milan and a famous observer of double stars. |
| Democritus | 62.3N | 35.0E | 39 | ~ of Abdera (460-370 B.C.E.), Greek astronomer and philosopher; educated by the Magi in astronomy and theology, he argued the eternity of existing nature, of void space, and of motion. He acquired fame with his knowledge of natural phenomena and predicted changes in the weather, using this ability to make people believe that he could predict future events. |
| Demonax | 77.9S | 60.8E | 128 | ~ (?-c. 100 B.C.), Greek philosopher, born in Cyprus; among the most popular philosophers of his time, he attempted to revive the philosophy of the Cynic School in Athens. |
| Denning | 16.4S | 142.6E | 44 | William F. ~ (1848-1931), British astronomer; legendary comet and meteor shower observer. First to confirm observation of several prominent meteor showers, including the Iota Aquarids (1877), Phi Sagittariids (1917) and Tau Herculids (1918). |
| Desargues | 70.2N | 73.3W | 85 | Girard ~ (1591-1661), French nobleman, mathematician and engineer; invented a new, non-Greek system of doing geometry, now called 'projective' or 'modern' geometry. Desargues was a member of the part of the Parisian mathematical circle surrounding Marin Mersenne, which included Rene Descartes, Etienne Pascal and his son, Blaise Pascal (qq.v.). |
| Descartes | 11.7S | 15.7E | 48 | René ~ (1596-1650), French mathematician, physicist and philosopher; developed a theory known as the mechanical philosophy. In Traité de l'homme ("Treatise on Man," 1664) and Passions de l'âme ("Passions of the Soul," 1649), he expounded the view that an animal was an automaton lacking both sensation and self-awareness, and that only man was endowed with a soul. His La géométrie includes the first application of algebra to geometry from which we now have Cartesian geometry. |
| Deseilligny | 21.1N | 20.6E | 6 | Jules Alfred Pierrot ~ (1868-1918), French selenographer. |
| Deslandres | 33.1S | 4.8W | 256 | Henri Alexandre ~ (1853-1948), French astrophysicist; worked at the Paris and Meudon Observatories, directing the latter (1908-1926) and, subsequently, both for three years after their merger. Made significant contributions to the investigation of molecular spectra, finding empirical laws that became more useful after the development of quantum mechanics. He named plages and filaments, and he showed that the latter are the same structures as prominences. Awarded the 1921 Bruce Medal. |
| Deutsch | 24.1N | 110.5E | 66 | Armin J. ~ (1918-1969), American astronomer; developed the method of Doppler tomography, an indirect imaging technique used in observing the periodic brightness variations of stars. |
| Dewar | 2.7S | 165.5E | 50 | Sir James ~ (1842-1923), British chemist; best known for his work on the properties of matter at very low temperatures and the liquefaction of gases. He liquefied and solidified hydrogen and invented the Dewar flask, a container for storing hot or cold substances such as liquid air. It consists of two flasks, one inside the other, separated by a vacuum. The vacuum greatly reduces the transfer of heat. The common thermos bottle is an adaptation of the Dewar flask. |
| Diana | 14.3N | 35.7E | 50 | Roman goddess of wild animals and the hunt; counterpart of Greek goddess Artemis (q.v.). |
| Diderot | 20.4S | 121.5E | 20 | Denis ~ (1713-1784), French philosopher and critic; best known for his work on the monumental Encyclopédie (1745-1772), one of the seminal works of Enlightenment thought. He and his fellow Encyclopedists were notorious for their radical and often atheistical thought. |
| Dionysius | 2.8N | 17.3E | 18 | St. Dionysius the Areopagite (A.D. 9-120), Greek theologian and astronomer; one of the first Athenian disciples of the Apostle Paul and the first bishop of Athens. A number of works (including The Divine Names, Mystical Theology, The Celestial Hierarchies, and The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy) are often attributed to him which have influenced basic Orthodox teaching. |
| Diophantus | 27.6N | 34.3W | 17 | ~ of Alexandria (c. 200-c. 284?), Greek mathematician; often known as the 'father of algebra', is best known for his Arithmetica, a work on the solution of algebraic equations and on the theory of numbers. The Arithmetica is a collection of 130 problems giving numerical solutions of determinate equations (those with a unique solution), and indeterminate equations. The method for solving the latter is now known as Diophantine analysis. |
| Dirichlet | 11.1N | 151.4W | 47 | Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune ~ (1805-1859), French-German mathematician; his work on units in algebraic number theory Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie (published 1863) contains important work on ideals. He also proposed the modern definition of a function (1837). Dirichlet is also well known for his papers on conditions for the convergence of trigonometric series and the use of the series to represent arbitrary functions. |
| Disney | 18.5N | 4.75E | 3 | Walter Elias ~ (1901-1966), American artist, cartoonist, animator, motion picture producer and entrepreneur. Co-founder of Disney Brothers Studio and co-creator of Mickey Mouse and other iconic animated characters. |
| Dobrovolski | 12.8 S | 129.7E | 38 | Georgi Timofeyevich ~ (1928-1971), Soviet aeronautical engineer, air force pilot and cosmonaut, born in Ukraine; following a successful mission aboard Soyuz 11, which included a rendezvous with the Salyut 1 space station, Commander Dobrovolski died with crewmates Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev (qq.v.) when a minor malfunction in a door seal caused the cabin to depressurize prior to reentry. The Dobrovolski Solar Observatory at Auckland, New Zealand, was named in his honor. |
| Dörffel, or Doerffel | 69.1S | 107.9W | 68 | Georg Samuel ~ German astronomer (1643-1688); studied and worked under Erhard Weigel (q.v.) at Jena, along with Gottfried Kirch. Following Kirch's discovery of the Comet Of 1680, Dörffel made his own observations and devised his theory of parabolic orbits for comets. |
| Dollond | 10.4S | 14.4E | 11 | John ~ (1706-1761), British optician; inventor of the achromatic lens for telescopes. His sons, Peter and John, continued the family optics business and sold a variety of scientific instruments. |
| Donati | 20.7S | 5.2E | 36 | Giovanni Battista ~ (1826-1873), Italian astronomer; a pioneer in the spectroscopic study of the stars and the Sun, he served as director of the Florence Observatory from 1864. He was the first to obtain and analyze the spectrum of a comet, concluding that the composition of comets is, at least in part, gaseous. He discovered six new comets, among them Donati's Comet, which he first saw on 2 June 1858. |
| Donna | 7.2N | 38.3E | 2 | Italian female name; literally "woman." |
| Donner | 31.4S | 98.0E | 58 | Anders ~ (1873-1949), Finnish astronomer; professor of astronomy and director of the Helsinki University observatory. |
| Doppelmayer | 28.5S | 41.4W | 63 | Johann Gabriel ~ (1671-1750), German mathematician, astronomer; created the Atlas coelestis, an early cosmologic atlas which included ten star maps and a long series of diagrams that show the motion of the bodies of the solar system. |
| Doppler | 12.6S | 159.6W | 110 | J. Christian ~ (1803-1853), Austrian physicist and mathematician; theorized that sound waves from a moving source would be compressed or expanded, or that the frequency would change (the "Doppler Effect"). Fizeau (q.v.) generalized Doppler's work and discovered that it also applied to light. This discovery contributed greatly to proving the Universe was expanding. |
| Douglass | 35.9N | 122.4W | 49 | Andrew Ellicott ~ (1867-1962), American astronomer, meteorologist and botanist; while working at Lowell Observatory (Flagstaff, Arizona), he perfected the tree-ring dating method, which he named "dendrochronology." Douglass wrote a total of 159 articles, many of which focus upon the cyclic phenomena or tree-rings. |
| Dove | 46.7S | 31.5E | 30 | Heinrich Wilhelm ~ (1803-1879), German physicist and meteorologist; often referred to as the father of meteorology, he formulated meteorological laws of gyration. His major work was The Distribution of Heat Over the Surface of the Globe. |
| Doyle | 2.0N | 84.5E | 32 | Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan ~ (1859-1930), Scottish novelist; creator of "Sherlock Holmes." |
| Draper | 17.6N | 21.7W | 8 | Henry ~ (1837-1882), American physician and astronomer; made the first photograph of an astronomical nebula, recording the Great Nebula of Orion on 30 September 1880; the first stellar spectrum photograph, which he took of Vega in August 1872; the first wide-angle photograph of a comet's tail; and the first spectrum of a comet's head, both of these with Tebbutt's Comet in 1881. In addition, Draper obtained many high-quality photographs of the Moon in 1863, a benchmark spectrum of the Sun in 1873, and spectra of the Orion Nebula, the Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and numerous bright stars. He also invented the slit spectrograph and pushed the state of the art in photography, instrumental optics, and telescope clock drives. (Source: Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers) |
| Drebbel | 40.9S | 49.0W | 30 | Cornelius ~ (1572-1633), Dutch alchemist and inventor; invented a force pump for a fountain, as well as a clockwork device that could allegedly keep going for one hundred years. While serving in the Court of England's King James I, he introduced the compound microscope, a thermometer and a telescope, as well as a still for obtaining fresh water from brine; wind-powered musical instruments and toys; an incubator; and a thermostatically-controlled oven. His most notable invention, however, was an early version of a submarine. |
| Dreyer | 10.0N | 96.9E | 61 | John Louis Emil ~ (1852-1926), British astronomer, born in Copenhagen; an assistant at Dunsink Observatory (1878-1882) before moving to Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, where he became Director in 1882, where he concentrated on the compilation of The Second Armagh Catalogue of Stars and what became his most important contribution to astronomy, The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (known commonly as the "NGC"). In this catalog, which to this day remains the standard reference used by astronomers the world over, he listed 7840 objects. He followed it with two supplementary Index Catalogues (1895, 1908) which contained an additional 5386 objects. It is the order in which they appear in these catalogs that defines the name of many prominent galaxies, nebulae and star clusters. |
| Drude | 38.5S | 91.8W | 24 | Paul Karl Ludwig ~ (1863-1906), German physicist; performed pioneering work on the optics of absorbing media and connected the optical with the electrical and thermal properties of solids. His well-known textbook on optics, Lehrbuch der Optik, is considered a standard work on the subject. |
| Dryden | 33.0S | 155.2W | 51 | Dr. Hugh Latimer ~ (1898-1965), American physicist and engineer; director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) from 1947 until the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), for which he served as Deputy Administrator. Previously, he was Associate Director of the National Bureau of Standards, where he had served since 1918 in scientific research. |
| Drygalski | 79.3S | 84.9W | 149 | Erich D. von ~ (1865-1949), German geographer, geophysicist and polar explorer; led the German Antarctic expedition aboard the Gauss to explore the unknown area of the Antarctic lying south of the Kerguelen Islands (1901-1903). Despite being trapped by ice for nearly 14 months, Drygalski and his crew discovered Kaiser Wilhelm II Land. |
| Dubyago | 4.4N | 70.0E | 51 | Dimitrii Ivanovich ~ (1849-1918), Russian astronomer; Also Alexander Dmitriyevich ~ (1903-1959), Soviet astronomer; author of The Determination of Orbits. |
| Dufay | 5.5N | 169.5E | 39 | Jean C. B. ~ (1896-1967), French astronomer; author of the essential texts Galactic Nebulae and Interstellar Matter and Introduction to Astrophysics: The Stars. |
| Dugan | 64.2N | 103.3E | 50 | Raymond S. ~ (1878-1940), American astronomer; professor of astronomy at Princeton University. Discovered Asteroid 508 Princetonia (1903). |
| Dumas | 5.3S | 81.7E | 16 | Alexandre ~ père (1802-1870), French novelist; best known for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. |
| Dunér, or Duner | 44.8N | 179.5E | 62 | Nils Christoffer ~ (1839-1914), Swedish astronomer, astrophysicist and Arctic explorer; professor of astronomy at Uppsala Observatory, Sweden. |
| Dunthorne | 30.1S | 31.6W | 15 | Richard ~ (1711-1775), British astronomer; planned and funded the building of the observatory at St. John's College, Cambridge, donating the instruments himself. He carried out observations of the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, and prepared new lunar tables. |
| Dyson | 61.3N | 121.2W | 63 | Sir Frank Watson ~ (1868-1939), British astronomer; astronomer royal of Scotland (1905–10) and of England (from 1910). As director (1910–33) of Greenwich Observatory he greatly expanded its research activities and inaugurated (1928) the wireless transmission of Greenwich time. Noted for his study of solar eclipses, he was an authority on the spectrum of the corona and on the chromosphere. |
| Dziewulski | 21.2N | 98.9E | 63 | Władysław ~ (1878-1962), Polish astronomer; professor of astronomy at Batory University in Vilna and Copernicus University in Torun. The planetarium at Torun is named in his honor. |