Eratosthenian geological period includes fairly young, non-rayed fresh craters. I did notice a Copernican ray to the N of Eratosthenes and several patches of lightened areas within the surrounding areas. Eratosthenes has very steep, tormented walls and is approximately 60km x 60km wide. It has an elongated central mountain with several summits. Its morphology is very similar to impact crater Copernicus, but its rays most likely deteriorated from weather and age.
The distance of this crater from the terminator made it perfect for studying the floor and terraced walls. The western floor edge was difficult to differentiate from where the upslope began for its wall. It appeared to be more a lightening with a few darkened lines.
For comparison, here is an image from the Lunar Orbiter (through the Lunar and Planetary Institute site). My sketch is the eyepiece view from my telescope and will need to be rotated 180 degrees to match the Lunar Orbiter image.
My sketch here, shows the famous comet Halley as seen at its best from Norway.
The bright coma had a drop-form, and a halo was seen in the outer coma to west.
In my 10 x 50 binos, the tail was narrow and 2 deg. long. Info on my sketch.
Halley returns in 2061, so good luck to the younger observers!
I used colour crayons on black paper.
Location : Trondheim, Norway.
This is my sketch of the orion nebula, drawn on September, 5th 2013, 4:30h at Kaltenbronn Hohloh, black forest, germany, at 998m with my 18″ Dobson Telescope at 135x using an UHC filter.
Height: 18 degrees over Horizon
Drawn with pencil on white paper, scanned, inverted, and processed to remove “dust-stars” from scanning, darkened, and used the smudge tool to recreate the filaments in the nebula.
On 31 July, we had the best observation conditions. The air was as good as ever before. At the beginning of the night I was looking for the Blue Flash Nebula NGC 6905.
At low magnification, the bright trapezoid fit into the field of view and the pretty star chain that led to the fog was beautiful to see.
The night was wonderful and I could look at many beauties of heaven. The transparency was excellent and everything in warm temperatures and little wind.
Object: NGC 6905 “Blue Flash Nebula”
Telescope: 10 “ACF
Eyepiece 31mm Nagler
Magnification: approx 80x
Location: near Tauberbischofsheim Germany
I send to you a sketch created last year of a favorite region of the lunar landscape. Rupes Recta, latin for “Straight Fault” or “Straight Wall” is a lunar fault at the southeastern region of Mare Nubium. This sketch was created at ~8 days lunation when the angle of the Suns light casts deep shadows across the linear fault giving it the appearance of a very steep cliff.
In spite of appearances, Rupes Recta is not a sheer cliff, though still relatively steep. It rises above the mare plain ~250 to 300 meters high with ~20 degree grade as reported by some authors. The fault runs NW to SE for ~120 km terminating at the south end as a jumble of rubble and then a smooth curved wall. This creates the appearance of a sword as likened by 17th century Huygens, the curved region being the sword handle with the cliff edge being the sword blade.
Seeing was very good on this night but the angle of light at the terminator did not illuminate the “handle” as well as on other nights of observing. When this region is observed days later the steepness of the fault vanishes and appears as a step transition instead. The light plays amazing tricks on the eye.
Sketched in relief to the west of the fault is crater Birt just becoming lit. Thebit and Thebit A are sketched to the SE of Rupes Recta.
Cindy (Thia) Krach
Maui, Hawaii
4,000 el.
12.5” Portaball
14mm 109x, 9mm 169x
Object: 20 Trifid Nebula
Location: Mt. Nerone
Date 3rd Aug 2013
Pencil on white paper
This nebula is quite low at my latitude and thus is always submerged in the light pollution halo from cities in the south. This makes it a quite difficult object without a nebula filter. I have obtained the best results with an UHC-S filter. I also tried with an OIII filters which gives outstanding constrast on Lagoon Nebula, which is just nearby, but it is not the best for the trifid.
Object Name (Nova Del 2013)
Object Type (Variable Star)
Location (Provence France)
Date (sept 5th, 2013)
Media (graphite pencil, water colour, white paper, paint.net to invert and compil)
Hi sketchers
I like things moving in the sky, and the Nova Del 2013 was the kind of progression that I like to chase.
A little bit less artistic, you can find the curve made of 30 magnitude estimations I did during 20 successive nights, no one single cloudy night!
The original sketch was done during the first night (Aug. 15th) the Dolphin constellation is easily visible.
The observation was made via 10×50 binoculars and then with a 80/400 refractor, received from my friend Yvan, to follow this observation . The sketch of the nova story, on the upper let corner, was made with inverted watercolour.
Hope you like, it’s difficult to make an artistic curve, isn’t it?
Michel Deconinck (from Polaris83 Forcalqueiret)
Plato and Archimedes craters
Lunar craters
Eastbourne, UK
28th Aug 2013, 01:15 – 03:15 UT. Temperature 12C
Meade LX90 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with 26mm super Plossl eyepiece, 77x
White and black pastel on Daler Rowney Canford black paper
As a little summer holiday project I made a pledge to myself to sketch lunar craters at every opportunity, casually assuming that the usual poor British summer weather would make this an easy commitment to keep. However, I have been kept busy over the last couple of weeks!
I have been inspired by the quality of the sketches on your website and as you can see I am still some way off those standards; however, I am pleased to see (I think) some improvement in my efforts. I sketched this at the eyepiece using the pastels and just my finger as a blending tool.
