central peak – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Big Bowl of Pythagoras

Lunar crater Pythagoras - January 3, 2015 — Lunar crater Pythagoras – January 3, 2015

Object Name – Pythagoras
Object Type – Lunar impact crater
Location – Deventer, The Netherands
Date – Januari 3, 2015
Media – White pastel pencil on black paper

So far this winter is terrible for astronomy. Nothing but clouds and rain in the Netherlands… But yesterday evening the skies finally cleared and my 3″ Polarex Unitron was quickly set up in the backyard. Crater Pythagoras on the northeastern limb of the Moon looked particularly nice – like a deep rocky bowl in the lunar surface. Seeing conditions were fair, so I pumped up the magnifcation to a crazy (for a 3″) 200x. It still gave a pleasant and sharp view and sketching was quite comfortable with the crater looking big in the eyepiece.

Pythagoras is a 130km wide impact crater with staggering 5km high terraced walls. The central peaks (I could see two of them) are also pretty huge: 3,5km high! Imagine the panoramic view from the top op one of those mountains….

Sketch made with a pastel pencil on black paper, through a 3″ Polarex Unitron at 200x (Baader 6mm BGO). The image is mirror reversed.

Clear Skies,
Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl

Surprise Libration

The lunar crater Gauss and environs seen in different librations on January 16, 2014 and December 8, 2014

Last night I made a sketch of Lunar crater Gauss and its surroundings. While archiving the sketch this morning I realised I already sketched this part of the Moon almost a year ago, so I got the idea of a side by side comparison to show the effect of lunation. To my surprise I found out these sketches were made at the exact same lunation: 15.5 days. The difference in lighting therefore had to be caused mainly by the Moon’s libration; the slow wobbling of the Moon in its orbit. A pleasant suprise to find out I sketched this phenomenon totally unintentionally!

Both sketches were made using a 3″ Polarex Unitron refractor at 171x, with a white pastel pencil on black paper. Orientation and size were matched using Photoshop.

Object Name: Gauss
Object Type: Lunar crater, libration
Location: Deventer, The Netherlands
Date: December 8, 2014
Media: white pastel pencil, black paper

Clear skies!
Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl

Lunar craters Aristoteles and Mitchell

Lunar craters Aristoteles and and Mitchell - November 28, 2014 — Lunar craters Aristoteles and and Mitchell – November 28, 2014

Hi,

Tonight I could do yet another lunar crater sketch:

Object Name: Aristoteles and Mitchell
Object Type: Lunar Crater
Location: Germany, Dusseldorf area
Date: 2014-11-28, 1910-1940 CET
Media: chalk pencil and charcoal pencil on black sketching cardbox
Telescope: Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT
Eyepiece: TS HR Planetary 7mm
Clear skies!

Achim

Lunar Crater Copernicus

Across the Carpathian Mountains resting on the eastern Ocean of Storms is the
landmark crater of the Sea of Islands, mighty Copernicus. Copernicus is a 95
kilometer diameter complex crater that begins to show itself in all its majesty
two days past first quarter. During the time of “Snow-Ball Earth” 800 million
years ago the event that created Copernicus suddenly occurred. What remains is a
3.8 kilometer deep hummock covered flat floored, centrally peaked, terrace walled
spectacular sentinel. Especially during high sun the bright ray system of this
crater can be seen extending from the base of the glassy glacis in all directions.
The descent from the rampart to the mare floor below is about one kilometer. Three
of five peaks were clearly visible in morning sunlight. In 1999 the Clementine
near infrared camera detected magnesium iron silicates in the peaks indicating
rebound of this deep rock through the surface crust following the impact event.
To view this impressive crater all you need is a good pair of binoculars and an
opportunity between two days past first quarter and one day past last quarter.
Weather permitting, you can see it tonight.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x 12”, white and
black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump.

Telescope: 13.1 inch f/5.9 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 218x
Date: 11-03-2014, 00:45 – 02:10 UT
Temperature: 0°C (32°F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 23.2°
Lunation: 8.9 days
Illumination: 69.3 %
Phase: 67.4°

Frank McCabe

Mooncrater – Wilhelm

Lunar crater Wilhelm - October 3, 2014 — Lunar crater Wilhelm – October 3, 2014

Hello,

last week (October, 3rd, 2014) I met my astro-friend Ralf Mündlein in his nice observatory. In his 5m dome with 16″ ACF and 8″ Apo we started our observation. First object in this night was the moon. The air was excellent and we were very happy to have such great impressions on our cosmical neightbour.

A chose the nice crater Wilhelm with some bigger impacts around the craterwall. A fine mountain chain at the bottom of the crater took my attention. So I made a drawing of this crater with the 8″ Apochromat. It was hard work, because there were so many details. I needed nearly one hour to catch the whole crater.

CS Uwe

Object: Moon
Object Name: Crater Wilhelm
Telescope: 200mm Apo
Eyepiece: 6mm Ethos
Magnification: about 300x
Location: Lindelbach near Würzburg, Germany

Structural detail of the Pythagoras central peak

Structural detail of the Pythagoras central peak-January 15,16 2014

On two nights with more better seeing and sunlight angle or libration , I could see these views.

See below 2nd sketch over on the lunar horizon as the border with a line of the imaginary inner rim wall of this 130km diameter crater a bluish 10 mignitude permanent star was being moved on from over the Pythagoras to the Anaxagoras (Pilalous) in 4 minutes, …. that I think means moon and earth twin bodies each was(are) rotating and revolving.

It was thrilling to gaze and feel this massive giant old rocky ball goes ahead swinging or pitching his body in space.

—————-

8″ f12 refractor, x340

Location ; Backyard home in South. Korea

White paper [40 x30 cm] , graphite pencils , black ink