Moon – Page 37 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

On the plain at Hadley

Hadley Rille and Surroundings
By Peter Mayhew

For a lunar observer, seeking out the Apollo landing sites is an inevitable pilgrimage. The easiest, and most rewarding, site to locate is the Apollo 15 site at Hadley Rille on the edge of the Apennine mountains.

On the evening of 22nd April, the sky suddenly cleared just as I was about ready for bed, so I changed plans and took out the scope for a gaze at a crystal clear day 8 moon. Seeing was excellent, and lighting conditions were just right for picking out the Apollo 15 site features.

I tried hard to locate St George crater, which is on the tip of Mons Hadley Delta, was one of the Apollo 15 sampling site targets, and is visible in a small telescope, but I only got unsure brief suggestions of it; perhaps the sun angle wasn’t quite right for this. However I could see the rille itself easily, and several mountains and hills photographed by Scott and Irwin from the lunar surface, as well as Silver Spur, on the flank of Hadley Delta. The “x” marks the landing site.

For comparison, here are some links to photographs of these features taken from the surface.

Landing site panorama. Here Mons Hadley is on the left and Hadley Delta just right of centre.

Object name: Hadley Rille, Mons Hadley, Mons Hadley Delta, Hadley C, Apollo 15 landing site.

Object type: Lunar rille, lunar crater, lunar mountains

Location: York, UK

Date: 22nd April 2010

Media: graphite pencil on white paper

Instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 152mm f8 Dobsonian with 10mm e.p. and x2 Barlow.

Pleine Lune

Full Moon
Sketch and Details by Christian Gros

Object Name : Pleine Lune
Object Type : Lune
Location : Besançon / France
Date : 28/04/2010
Media : Crayons Pastels sur feuille cartonnée grise

Bonjour,

Alors que je venais de changer les vis du miroir secondaire de mon télescope (18cm), pour tester ce dernier j’ai profité de la nuit de pleine lune pour faire se dessin à x70. J’ai réalisé ce dessin entierrement de nuit en environ une heure à l’aide de crayons pastels. il ne s’agissait pas de retranscrire tous les détails visibles, bien trop nombreux, mais bien montrer l’aspect principal de notre satellite.

Cordialement.

Christian Gros

Modified Google Translation:

Object Name: Full Moon
Object Type: Moon
Location: Besançon / France
Date: 28/04/2010
Media: Pencil Pastel on gray cardboard sheet

Hello,

So I had to change the screws of the secondary mirror of my telescope (18cm), to test it I took advantage of the full moon to make drawing at x70. I made this drawing at night in about an hour using pastels. It does not show all the details visible, there were far too many, but it does show the main aspect of our satellite.

Regards.
Christian Gros

Shadows of the Lunar Caucasus Mountains

Shadows of the Lunar Caucasus Mountains
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

On Tuesday evening I thought I may spend some time observing Mars and perhaps make a sketch if the seeing was good enough to move to high power. Before pointing my scope at Mars I decided to take a quick look at the moon to see if there was anything interesting going on such as light rays of sunlight illuminating and creeping across the floor of a large crater. I soon forgot about Mars and raced indoors to switch sketching media. I know I can sketch twice as fast using white on black and speed is what I needed to capture the quick changing scene along the terminator. What I spotted was the dramatic shadows of the Caucasus Mountain peaks across the floor of Mare Imbrium. I quickly drew on the black Canson paper a faint, white Conte’ pastel meandering line right at the western edge of the Caucasus mountains and roughly outlined the shape of the shadows before any change in length occurred. At this point I felt I could continue sketching in the normal manner. Craters at the bottom of the drawing such as Cassini were not as light struck when I started this sketch as they appear here since I sketched top to bottom. It took about 75 minutes to complete the basic rendering and I spent an additional 15 minutes cleaning smudges and erasing mistakes that were obvious to me.

Mare Serenitatis is the southeastern illuminated region of the sketch. Over to the terminator on the western side of the view are the two “C” shaped craters Autolycus and Aristillus. Among the shadows in the middle of the sketch is crater Theaetetus and directly below the last long shadow is part of crater Cassini and some of the peaks of the lunar Alps.

I had some fun with this one.

See Rükl- Atlas of the Moon Plates 12 and 13

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: Black Canson sketching paper, 9”x 12”, White and black Conte’ pencils, a blending stump, plastic eraser. After scanning, contrast was increased (+1) using the scanner.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 161x
Date: 4-21-2010, 2:00 – 3:15 UT
Temperature: 15° C (49° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co-longitude: 355°
Lunation: 6.6 days
Illumination: 42.7 %

Observing Location:
+41°37′ +87° 47′
Oak Forest, Il.

Frank McCabe

Moon and M45

Moon Occultation of M45
Sketch and Details by Ferenc Lovró

I was very fortunate that we had a clear night when this rare event occurred; we had only a couple of such evenings this winter so far. The 50% Moon was on the Southern side of the Pleiades. The star you may notice near the Moon was visible only for about 5-10 minutes, before it was covered by our little brother.

Location: Nádasdladány, Hungary
Observer: Ferenc Lovró
Moon occultation of M45 (Open cluster)
Also known as: Pleiades, NGC 1432, NGC 1435
Right ascension: 3h 48m; Declination: 24° 12′
Constellation: Taurus
Date/time: 2010.02.21 19:00 UT
Equipment: 12″ f/5 Newtonian Scope
FoV: 1° 1′ Magnification and filter(s): 45x
Seeing: 5/10 Transparency: 3/5

Aristarchus & Vallis Schröteri

Craters: Aristarchus, Herodotus. Vallis Schröteri
Sketch and Details by Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

Objects: Moon 88% of full. Craters: Aristarchus, Herodotus. Vallis Schröteri
Date: February 25, 2010
Place: Poland, Wrocław
Equipment: Schmidt-Cassegrain 5″ with Sky-Watcher SWA-58 9mm + barlow 2x
Magnification: About 227x
Seeing: 2/5
Transparency: 2/5
Weather: Good. Light fog
Technique: Pastels on fine art paper
Observer: Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

Little Copernicus

Bullialdus Crater
Sketch and Details by Giorgio Bonacorsi

Hi, artists, all. ok.? I’m o.k. in this moment, but i stay in depression cause the bad weather during four long months. My sketcher activity was stopped, apart some sketches of Mars and Sun. But two weeks ago, i made the new Moon sketch with my refractor 80/1000. The Moon stay over my head in clear sky and quiet of wind. The image in the eyepiece was very clear and beautiful. I see immediately the little crater Bullialdus, like a little Copernicus.I have made in the past one sketch of this crater, but only time is different about shadows and enlightenment of surface.
I sent you, nextly, other sketch of craters on shadow.
Clear sky and good new sketches at all.
Ciao, Giorgio.

Locality: Pergola, Marche Region, Center Italy.
Date: 25-26 of March 2010, from 10,15 p.m. to 12,40
Instrument: Refractor Kenko 80mm 1000 f.l.
Eyepiece: 15mm+Barlow (133x)

Seeing: Good, some clouds at the end.
Temperature: Cold, humidity.

The craters are: Bullialdus (at the center), Bullialdus A and B (little, at low), Lubinietzky (at high, only see the border).
Technics: Graphite pencil on white paper Fabriano 4.

Mysterious Rupes Recta

Thebit crater & Rupes Recta
Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

Object: Moon. Thebit crater & Rupes Recta
Date: January 23th, 2010
Place: Poland, Wrocław
Equipment: Schmidt-Cassegrain 5″ with S-W SWA58 9mm + barlow 2x
Filter: Moon & Skyglow
Seeing: 4/5
Transparency: 3/5
Weather: Very cold. Light wind.
Technique: Pastels on black paper
Oserver: Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

Shield of confusion

The Aristarchus plateau
Sketch and Details by Peter Mayhew
Hover cursor over sketch to view labels.

A lovely bright day 12 moon hung in the southern sky just before and after sunset. The terminator was just to the west of the Aristarchus plateau. Having saved and saved this for sketching for months, I gave in and did it. The clouds kept rolling across the moon interrupting me; first low thick stuff, and later high foggy stuff. But by 9.30pm I had got most of the visible features on paper. It wasn’t the best night for seeing, but was tolerable. The plateau is a volcanic shield about 200km square, in the North West of the Ocean of Storms. It breaks all sorts of lunar records; the brightest crater (Aristarchus), the longest sinuous rille (Vallis Schroteri), the most coloured spot “Wood’s spot” (the shield itself). Aristarchus itself appears bright white, especially the area to the east. Surrounding the ejecta slopes is a dark melt band, and then rays can be seen extending east, north and south. The crater itself has a central hill and a dark band surrounding that, as well as darker bands on the western crater wall. North-East is the ghost crater Prinz. Herodotus is an older, flooded crater, which seems on initial inspection to be the source of Schroter’s valley; the view is deceptive because of the notch in its northern wall and the dark surrounding land. The valley itself is sufficiently broad to distinguish either wall, and winds first north, then west and finally south, narrowing as it goes. The north-west of the shield is guarded by the long mountain chain Montes Agricola. Mons Herodotus lies to its south. The western area near the terminator is crossed by wrinkle ridges. The area is so complex that it was a real struggle to take in all the detail that was there: for this reason I’ve dubbed it the “shield of confusion”. I suspect another visit with better seeing conditions will bring out new features.

The sketch was graphite pencil on white paper, done at the eyepiece. Instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 150mm f8 Dobsonian, 10mm e.p. plus x2 Barlow.

Lunar South Pole

Lunar South Pole
Sketch and Details by Fred Corno

Please find attached an observation of the lunar South pole, the Eastern face: the observing session was carried out from northern Italy, with a 5” apo refractor, at 100x. Unfortunately, poor seeing and haze did not allow the use of a higher magnification. The observation was carried out at 21.15 UT on the 28th of May 2009.
I believe craters depicted are Boussingault (the southernmost, with the striped bottom) and Boguslawsky (the westernmost, with the shadowed bottom and the wall interrupted by a smaller crater. Just north of Boussingault is the complex of Boussingault E, B and C. If anybody can help with a better identification, it will be very welcome.

The sketch was made with hard and soft graphite pencils on white paper.

Best rtegards.

Fred Corno

Dawn Breaking across Crater Schickard

Crater Schickard
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

One of the many large and interesting craters on the visible lunar surface is this 230 km. diameter walled plain crater known as Schickard. This Pre-Nectarian crater is somewhat isolated from craters of equal size. It is the large, shallow floor of Schickard that presents its most interesting features and at the time of this sketch light was just beginning to spread across its floor. Tens of millions of years after this crater formed a much larger impact formed the Orientale basin, blanketing the crater with highland ejecta. This great crater can easily be seen in a modest telescope with good lighting one or two days before full moon.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: Black Canson sketching paper, 14”x 12”, White and black Conte’ pencils, a blending stump, plastic eraser. After scanning, contrast was increased (+1) using the scanner.

Telescope: 13.1 inch f/5.9 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 218x
Date: 2-26-2010, 1:45 – 2:30 UT
Temperature: 21° C (68° F) clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co-longitude: 57.5°
Lunation: 11.98 days
Illumination: 90.4 %

Observing Location:
+41°37′ +87° 47′
Oak Forest, Il.

Frank McCabe