Mons Pico and surrounding terrain Hover cursor over image to view labels.
Object Name: Mons Pico and surrounding terrain.
Object Type: Lunar mountain.
Location: York, UK
Date: 19th April 2013
Media: graphite pencil on white paper
A Day 9 moon and clear skies, and Friday, all meant sketching. Mons Pico is an isolated mountain peak (2400m) in the north of Mare Imbrium. The mountain probably marks the northern border of the inner basin ring of the Imbrium, which was afterwards mostly flooded by Mare lavas. For context I also filled in some of the surrounding peaks and nearby Plato. Wrinkle ridges on the Mare near to Pico form a roughly circular outline with the Mountain border to the north, suggesting that they mark the rim of a buried crater, known as Ancient Newton. However, there is still no confirmatory evidence of this. Pico is about 10km long. Montes Teneriffe, to the West, are about 100km long tip to tip.
Object Name: Rupes Recta
Object Type: Lunar feature
Location: Maastricht – Netherlands
Date: April 18th, 2013 – 19.00h UTC
Media: Graphite pencil 5B on white paper
Seeing: Variable, with moments of very good conditions
Equipment: 12″/F5 Dobson – Nagler 3-6mm Zoom – 375x
As the evening progressed the sky became mostly clear with some ground fog adding to the light scatter and the inevitable falling temperatures of an early spring night. Nevertheless, it was good enough for some observing and sketching. Crater Theophilus (100km.) was more than 450 kilometers from the terminator but remained an attractive target in the eyepiece as the Moon cleared a nearby building in my southeast.
Theophilus is a complex Erastothenian era crater at just over 1.3 billion years in age with large central peaks of deep crustal material that formed on the rebound from the initial impact. The appearance looks fresh when compared to its much older Nectarian period neighbor Cyrillus (100 km.). It was evident while observing this pair that Cyrillus was showered with ejecta from Theophilus and prior millennia of countless strikes by incoming rocks from space. The central peaks of Cyrillus are smaller, more muted and worn down. 300 kilometers to the west of Theophilus the Apollo 16 astronauts Charles Duke and John Young collected 96 kilograms of rocks over 3 days back in 1972 which included some ejecta from the Theophilus formation.
Remote sensors on the orbital spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 detected Iron rich Magnesium –Aluminum oxides on the central peaks of Theophilus adding to the knowledge of the composition to the deep lunar crust as indicated by a publication last spring.
Two other craters included in the sketch are Mädler (29 km.) also of Erastothenian age and Ibn-Rushd (34 km.) an ancient one at more than 3.2 billion years.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 8″ x 10″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils, a blending stump, white Pearl eraser. Contrast was slightly increased after scanning.
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 241X
Today’s sketch-“almost full” and a bit misted Moon. 🙂
TelescopeCapella 41cm + UWA SW 22mm, sketched in pencil, using “my favorite technique of intentional negative” and then inversionof the sketch!
Yours Robert
Sketch details:
Object Name: Almost full Moon.
Object Type: Moon.
Location: Poland, Oborniki
Date: 25-03-2013
Equipment: Newtonian telescope 409/1800 (Capella 41), and 22 mm eyepieces
Object: – Artist: Robert Twarogal (Ignisdei)
Title: Plato crater
My name: Silvia Fabi
Object name: Plato
Object type: crater
Location: Ferrara
Date: 18/02/2013
Media: white pencil and black paper
Seeing: I/II (Antoniadi scale)
Description: this crater has a diameter of 109 Km and it’s deep only 1,0 Km. It is located in the North Pole of the moon.
Sirsalis and Damoiseau Region Hover cursor over image to view labels.
Aloha,
I submit a lunar sketch of the Sirsalis & Damoiseau region bordering Oceanus Procellarum at the western region of the Moon created almost a year ago. What a wonderful area to explore with interesting concentric craters of Damoiseau & the double crater of Sirsalis at this angle of light. Unseen Grimaldi lies in the darkness to the west.
Object: Lunar craters Sirsalis & Damoiseau @ ~13 days lunation
Telescope: 12.5” Portaball 9mm Nagler 169X
Location: Maui Hawaii, 4000 ft elevation
Date: 2/4/12 7:45pm
Medium: Black art paper, white & black charcoal
I’ve been itching to have a go again at Alphonsus for some time. Along with its two buddies, Arzachel (to left) and Ptolemaeus (at right), this trio are a time line of Lunar history.
Ptolemaeus is the oldest. The crater floor is totally flooded, even the central peak is covered. It was fromed when the Moon was still very hot and lava readily flowed with a large impact.
Arzachel is the youngest. The crater floor is intact with no flooding, the crater walls are terraced with land slides both inside and outside of the crater.
Alphonsus sits bewteen the two in age. The crater floor is only partially flooded with the central peak still visible. The Moon has cooled since Ptolemaeus and lava flow has slowed. BUT, volcanic activity was still occuring after the flooding process had stopped. This is seen from the pyroclastic deposits that sit within Alphonsus. Four deposits lie within this crater and are marked in the labelled pic, and are seen as the darker shaded areas that are easy to see through the eyepiece.
Quite remarkable to consider that from here on Earth we can see the effects of ancient volcanism on a body that isn’t Earth.
Another treasure of the night was the Celestron Ultima LX 8mm eyepiece I used. These eyepiece are much underrated, but are surprisingly good. The 8mm in particular is easy to use for extended viewing. It made the 2.5 hours much more bearable, and my eyes were not as fatigued as they have been after with other sketches that have taken less time to do. It’s one of my favourite eyepieces.
Object: Pyroclastic deposits in Alphonsus
Scope: C8, 8″ SCT
Gear: 8mm Celestron Ultima LX, 250X
Location: Sydney, Australia
Date: 19th March 2013
Media: Soft Pastel, charcoal and white ink on A4 size black paper
Duration: approx 2.5 hrs
Object: Comet PanSTARRS C/2011 L4 and Crescent Moon
Date: March 12, 2013
Time: Approx. 19:25 LST/ 02:25 UT
Location: ~2500ft or 762m atop Harquahala Mtn range near Aguila Arizona USA
Gear: Binoculars 8 x 56 6 degree FoV
Detector: Visual Sketch
Magnitude: Comet 1 Crescent Moon -5.6
Weather: Clear sky, windy at higher elevation of mountain, Temp- mid 60’s.
Comments:
Hello friends of ASOD!,
It’s been quite some time since I last posted anything on this site, but I finally got in gear and produced this colorful scene. I must admit that this was by far the best view and conjunction of PanSTARRS and the Crescent Moon. I had scouted some scenic spots around the neighborhood but none gave me the Southwest look I had in mind.
Harquahala Mounatins here I come!
A mild to tracherous climb on my “4×4″ and 5 miles later at 2500ft elevation, I found what I was looking for. There in the distance of a sloping mountain stood a set of Saguaro cacti and Ocotillo trees, silhouetted against the backround twilight sky. The sketch was not made on site, it would take me forever and the setting conjunction only had another 20 to 25 minutes before it was gone. A rough sketch was in order, jotting down pertinent objects and annotating further details like; varying colors of the twilight sky, degree of earthshine on the Moon and so on.
I made I mistake!
Well, in choosing my paper grade, I got a Canson 12″ x 18” / 30 x 45 cm. with a slight texture finish on the surface. I was loving the results as I first lay down the sky colors but, later on, I was noticing that there were tiny uncolored pockets left uniformly. I continued anyhow, but it would give a hard time later when I added the comet. Some of those pockets were as big as the comet itself and would render it almost invisible. Well, I worked around it until I was satisfied. I might have given PanSTARRS one full magnitude more than necessary but, I’ll do it for the sake of showing it. Out in the field, remember, you had to squint your eyes or avertedly look for it, if you knew its whereabouts.
Dang iphone!
Convenience over quality. I cheated by not connecting my scanner to the computer and instead took a picture of the sketch. Once on my phone, I messed with the exposure and contrast to liven up the colors somewhat. I also used it to put some text at the bottom of the sketch along with my name. Well, you be the judge!
On the evening of March 12, 2013, I was treated to a pleasant view of the 1.26 day old Moon (1.8% illuminated) and comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS from 07:00pm to 07:20pm local time Mesa, Arizona. I had an excellent view of the clear western sky and I could see the comet naked eye about 6.5 diameters to the south of the Moon.
To assist in making the rough graphite sketch I used a 5x 50mm finder scope removed from an Orion telescope. After returning home from Arizona to Illinois I made a color drawing from field notes and the graphite sketch. I was planning on a color sketch but the number of colors need and blending seemed too much for the 30 minutes to comet set.
Sketching:
Graphite pencils: 6B, 4B and 2B also black and white pastel pencils on white sketching paper.
Color drawing was made with black and white charcoal pencils and an assortment of color pencils on medium blue paper.
