Mare
JTC-1042
Mare Imbrium
A clean, bowl-shaped impact on the smooth floor of the Sea of Showers. Its rim is young enough to still throw a crisp shadow at first quarter.
- Coordinates
- 34.20° N, 14.80° W
- Diameter
- 4.1 km
$129View crater
Joshua Tree, California · Dark Sky Country
Name a Real Crateron the Moon
More than a million craters are scattered across the Moon and fewer than sixteen hundred have ever been given a name. From the dark skies above Joshua Tree, California, we help you choose one of the rest, and put a name on it that lasts.
Certificate and ExplOrbit Moon Map included · Ships from the high desert
- 1.3M+
- Craters wider than one kilometre
- 5,185
- Craters wider than twenty kilometres
- ~1,600
- Craters that carry an official name
- 99.8%
- Of lunar craters still unnamed
The dedication
Four steps, about six minutes
No account, no subscription, no fine print buried anywhere. Choose the ground, name it, and we take care of the rest from Joshua Tree, California.
- 01
Open the lunar atlas
Explore an interactive map of the Moon’s near side. Every marker is a real, catalogued crater that has never been given a name by anyone.
- 02
Choose your crater
Filter by lunar sea, highland or heritage ground near the Apollo landing sites. Read its coordinates, diameter and depth before you decide.
- 03
Give it a name
Add the name, the occasion and a short inscription. Watch the certificate compose itself, letter by letter, as you type.
- 04
It arrives in the post
A letterpress certificate and a folded ExplOrbit Moon Map showing exactly where your crater sits, ready to hand over.
From the atlas
See all 20Craters currently unclaimed
20 unnamed craters are open in the Joshua Tree registry tonight. Each one is retired the moment somebody names it.
Terminator
JTC-1402
Oceanus Procellarum
One of the largest unclaimed craters on the near side, wide enough to swallow a city and deep enough to hide a mountain.
- Coordinates
- 9.40° N, 61.70° W
- Diameter
- 8.3 km
$129View crater
Mare
JTC-2203
Lacus Somniorum
In the Lake of Dreams, which carries the finest name on the near side and one of its softest, most diffuse borders.
- Coordinates
- 37.40° N, 28.60° E
- Diameter
- 3.4 km
$129View crater
Heritage
JTC-2274
Montes Apenninus
In the foothills of the Lunar Apennines, within sight of Hadley Rille, where Apollo 15 parked the first vehicle ever driven on another world.
- Coordinates
- 25.40° N, 4.10° E
- Diameter
- 6.3 km
$129View crater
$129
Everything included, shipped free
In the box
Something they can actually hold
A digital gift disappears into an inbox. This one gets framed. Every dedication leaves Joshua Tree as a physical package, printed and packed by hand.
The Certificate of Lunar Dedication
Printed on heavy cotton stock with your chosen name set large, alongside the crater’s true coordinates, diameter and registry number. Framed size, ready to hang.
The ExplOrbit Moon Map
A folded chart of the near side from our sister brand, with your crater marked and the great maria, mountain ranges and Apollo landing sites labelled.
Viewing notes for your crater
The nights your crater sits closest to the terminator, what you will need to see it, and where to stand out here for the darkest sky.
Real catalogued craters, never a duplicateRetired from the atlas the moment it is dedicatedShips within one working day from Joshua Tree, CaliforniaCertificate and ExplOrbit Moon Map with every dedication
Choose your craterUnboxing
Your Celestial Companion Collection
Every dedication ships flat in an 18" × 24" stay-flat mailer, so nothing is rolled, creased or bent on its way to the door.
The lunar library
Most of the Moon has never been named
Before you choose, it helps to know what you are choosing from. A few numbers that surprise nearly everybody.
1,300,000+
More than 1.3 million craters wider than a kilometre
The most complete modern survey of the Moon, built from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data, catalogued over 1.3 million impact craters at least one kilometre across. Nobody has counted the smaller ones. Below a kilometre the number runs into the billions.
5,185
Roughly 5,185 craters are wider than 20 kilometres
Twenty kilometres is about the size where a crater stops being a simple bowl and starts developing terraced walls and a central peak. There are a little over five thousand of those on the Moon.
99.8%
Only about 1,600 craters carry an official name
The International Astronomical Union has formally named roughly sixteen hundred lunar craters since Giovanni Riccioli began the modern naming convention in 1651. Set against 1.3 million catalogued craters, that means more than 99.8 percent of the Moon's craters have never been named by anyone.
Why Joshua Tree
The darkest skies in Southern California sit right above our workshop
The high desert sits at the seam where two ecosystems meet, and the nearest city glow is far enough away that the sky genuinely goes black. People fly in from all over the world, drive out into the dark, turn off their headlights and wait for their eyes to adjust.
What they see is the reason this company exists. On a moonless night the Milky Way runs from horizon to horizon. And on the nights when the Moon is up, it is bright enough to read by, and close enough that its craters resolve in a pair of binoculars braced on a car roof.
We started The Joshua Tree Crater Company to answer the question that sky always raises: how do I keep this? A crater is our answer.
- Bortle 3
- Sky darkness out here, dark enough for the Milky Way to cast a shadow.
- 15×
- More stars visible on a moonless night than from a suburban back garden.
- 2 hrs
- From Los Angeles, and a world away from its glow.
Joshua Tree, California · 34.1347° N, 116.3131° W
Minutes from the shop, and some of the finest naked-eye observing anywhere in Southern California.
Reasons people do this
A gift that does not get returned
Nine out of ten dedications from our Joshua Tree workshop are bought for somebody else. These are the moments they mark.
Birthdays
The gift for the person who genuinely has everything. Nobody has ever had a crater before.
Graduations
A marker for the moment somebody stepped into the rest of their life. Mounted, framed, kept.
Weddings & Anniversaries
Two names on one crater, on ground that will outlast every building on Earth.
New Arrivals
Name a crater the week a child is born and it grows up with them, hanging above the cot.
In Memory
A quiet, permanent place to put a name. Many of our customers say it is the only gift that felt right.
Retirements
Forty years of work deserves more than a card. Give them somewhere to look at night.
From the registry
What people do with them
I gave my father a crater in the Sea of Serenity for his seventieth. He set up his telescope in the driveway that night and found it. He has not stopped talking about it since.
Marisol R.
Twentynine Palms, California
We were married out in the desert at dusk and named a crater in Lacus Somniorum, the Lake of Dreams. The certificate hangs in the hallway. Guests always stop at it.
Dan & Priya K.
Joshua Tree, California
My students each picked a crater for our astronomy unit. Watching a fourteen-year-old realise that most of the Moon has no names yet is worth the whole lesson plan.
Ms. Alvarez
Yucca Valley High School
Tonight there are 20 unnamed craters left in our atlas
Pick one, put a name on it, and it comes off the list for good. The whole thing takes about six minutes and arrives in the post within the week.
