It lies to the west-northwest of the irregular crater Rhaeticus, and is about 33 km to the west of the even smaller Blagg.

It is named for Catherine Wolfe Bruce, an American philanthropist and patroness of astronomy.

[1] This feature is circular and cup-shaped, with no notable impacts overlaying the rim or interior.

The interior has a generally higher albedo than the surrounding terrain, but there is a band of darker material cross the midpoint of the crater from west to east.

Less than forty kilometres to the southeast is the original point of the selenographic coordinate system.