Geological Chronicle
Cremona lies along the Moon’s north-northwestern limb. From Earth, observers see the crater from the side, and libration affects its visibility. To see it in any detail, observers must view or photograph it from orbit. The crater lies midway between Boole to the south-southeast and Lindblad on the Moon’s far side. It is 85.12 km across.
The formation dates to the Nectarian period of the lunar geologic timescale. Smaller craters cover this relatively old, worn crater. Lesser impacts have worn down and rounded the rim, leaving a wide depression with somewhat irregular interior walls. Small craters cross the north and northwest rims, and Cremona L lies across the southern rim. Tiny craterlets cross the northeastern rim as part of a pattern that continues north.
Cremona B and C form a double-crater pair in the northwestern part of the floor. The western inner wall is unusually wide and rough. The eastern half of the floor is more level, with the remnant of a central peak attached to the eastern rim of Cremona C.
The local account names the crater for Italian mathematician and educator Luigi Cremona (1830–1903). David W. G. Arthur and Ewen Whitaker introduced the name in the Rectified Lunar Atlas in 1963. The International Astronomical Union officially adopted the designation in 1964.