White Conté on Black Paper – Page 17 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

A Winter Evening Moon

A Winter Evening Moon
By Frank McCabe

After a very long spell of overcast nights, the clouds parted long enough for a
sketch of the winter crescent moon.

In the afternoon as the moon appeared high on the meridian from behind the clouds;
I put my 107 mm reflector telescope outside to reach temperature equilibrium. As
twilight began I got started. Using a 203 mm diameter protractor template, I drew
a white circle on black paper to represent the lunar disk. I then added a small
amount of Conte’ crayon powder and blended it inside the circle with my fingers
like a mirror maker adding fine grinding abrasive and water to a mirror tool. I
turned on the equatorial platform drive and now I was ready to observe the moon
and sketch.

This sketch is more of an impression of the moon rather than an attempt to achieve
a level of accuracy. The earthshine was nicely visible and since only 20% of the
lunar side facing the earth was illuminated the sketch was 5 times easier to do
than the full moon.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 12”x 12”, white and
black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased
after scanning.

Telescope: 4.25 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 24mm eyepiece 27x
Date: 1-12-2008 22:50-23:55 UT
Temperature: 0°C (32°F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 328.8°
Lunation: 4.5days
Illumination: 20.4 %

Semiannual Lunar Ritual

Vallis Schröteri and environs
By Jeremy Perez

And so, in the spirit of completing one Lunar sketch and observation every 6 months or so, I present Vallis Schröteri. On the night I made this observation, I was very impressed by the rugged terrain in the vicinity of this sinuous rille. The whole area looked like a badly skinned knee in merciful shades of gray. Although Vallis Schröteri was the celebrity, a few other features played staring roles. Mons Herodotus shone brilliantly while the craters Herodotus and Aristarchus stared out like spectacled eyes with the teardrop of Väisälä glistening on the burnished cheek of a nearby highland. Further to the north, Montes Agricola embraced the region like the tip of a rattlesnake’s tail.

There was so much to observe and sketch, I couldn’t possibly capture it all. I did learn from my previous attempts at white on black Conté sketching and went for a larger illustration. This sketch was prepared on a 9″ x 12″ sheet of black Canson Mi Tientes pastel paper. I used a blending stump to smooth the pastel where appropriate and to build up brighter tones. The brightest rims are straight attacks with the Conté pencil. The sketch took about 45 minutes at the eyepiece with another 15 minutes of additional touch-up indoors. White on black sketching is really a great way to tackle the moon–especially the terminator. I hope to keep working at it when time permits. I’ll still be using pencil and charcoal, but it’s nice to have this method accessible when I want it.

Object Information:

Vallis Schröteri is the largest sinuous valley on the Moon. Although hidden in shadow in my sketch, this valley makes its start at a 6 km diameter crater just north of Herodotus crater and widens to 10 km. This area is sometimes referred to as the Cobra’s head. It then winds 160 km and narrows to 500 m at it’s end. The rille is likely the result of volcanic activity as a lava flow carved its winding path through the landscape. Aristarchus is a remarkably bright crater with a pronounced ray system. It is 40 km in diameter and is believed to be a relatively young 450 million years old.

Subject Vallis Schröteri and Surroundings
Classification Sinuous Valley, Craters and Mountains
Position West
Phase/Age 11.7 Days
Size* Vallis Schröteri: 160 km length x 1000 m depth (max)
Herodotus: 35 km dia
Aristarchus: 40 km dia x 3000 m depth
Väisälä: 8 km dia
Dorsum Niggli: 50 km length
Montes Agricola: 160 km length
Mons Herodotus: 5 km dia

Date/Time April 28, 2007, 10:00 PM MST (April 29, 2007, 05:00 UT)
Observing Loc. Flagstaff, AZ – Home
Instrument Orion SVP 6LT Reflector (150 mm dia./1200 mm F/L)
Eyepieces/Mag. 10 mm + 2X Barlow (240X)
Conditions Partly cloudy, calm
Seeing Ant. III
Sources Atlas of the Moon by Antonín Rükl 2004; Observing the Moon by Gerald North 2000.
* Based on published data.

Fire and Ice

The Sun in Ha light on January 4th, 2008
By Erika Rix

2008 01 04
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA
Erika Rix
Solar

It was a beautiful sight today with the Sun gleaming off the snow. The snow was
melting fast as the temperature was slowly rising. Unfortunately, the snow didn’t
melt fast enough off the observatory roof, so I had to just drop down the upper part
of the southern wall and leave the roof completely on, otherwise, I would have had
to deal with water dripping on my gear in the observatory. As it turned out, it was
a good way to keep the winds at bay today, plus I’m sure kept me warmer in the more
enclosed space.

There were four very bright plage areas on the disk in h-alpha. One from NOAA 10981,
another large intricate plage structure for 10980, then a very thin bright one that
reached over to 10980 just inside the Eastern limb. The final was toward the West. I
could see a dark “spot” being cradled by the plage in 981, and by viewing in white
light, there was most definitely a small pore that appeared almost elongated. With
all the haze today plus winds during my white light filter session outside of the
observatory, it was difficult to tell if this elongation was another very tiny pore
just beside the larger one, or if it was just blurred from the conditions outside.
In any case, both to the NE and the SW of this dark dot were faint markings
resembling contrast of faculae. I couldn’t confirm what the markings were with this
observation.

In white light, I could see no other evidence of active regions.

Getting back to h-alpha in the observatory, there were six areas of prominence
around the limb that I could see. With the haze and poor seeing conditions, I had to
wait for moments of clarity and steadiness to get good definition for closer looks.
Patience definitely proved to be valuable today.

The prominence to the SE just below the AR980 was very faint and fan-like. To the
very southern portion of it, it became brighter. I could almost make out all the
connections to each section of it.

Then at the western limb, slightly to the south was a very sharp brighter prominence
with several fingers reaching out like flames. I really enjoyed this one.

The show stopper of the session was most definitely the plage with a few dark thin
filaments looking as if they were separating the plage in AR980 and onward to the
eastern limb.

It’s said that a new solar cycle has begun, making it number 24. We’ll see, but it’s
looking promising.

Ancient Crater Messala

Messala and environs
By Frank McCabe

Clear windless sky during the day and at night with temperatures just above the
freezing point of water, these are ideal weather conditions in winter for the
Midwestern USA. The waning gibbous moon was bright and high at midnight following
Mars across the celestial hemisphere. Through my 10” telescope I zeroed in on the
region north of Mare Crisium. I then turned on the drive platform and began
sketching the region of the terminator centered on ancient pre-Nectarian age
crater Messala (126 km.). This walled plain crater in the waning sunlight was
showing off its rubble covered irregular floor and battered walls. Although the
seeing was not the best, which stopped me from sketching Mars, this region of the
lunar northwest was putting on a good show. The floor in addition to being lava
covered, irregular and dark, appears slightly convex or domed. To the southwest
large much younger crater Geminus ( 88 km.) with its central peak just beyond the
shadowed floor was showing
its greater depth and terraced walls. Bernoulli (50 km.) closer to the terminator
is filled with shadow too. Touching Messala to the north is Schumacher (63 km.)
with its dark smooth floor and beyond the apron of this crater northward is ancient
Lacus Temporis (Lake of Time). To the southwest of Lacus Temporis are the ancient
craters Shuckburgh (41 km.) and then Hooke (37 km.).

Sketching:

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

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 161x
Date: 12-26-2007 5:30-7:00 UT
Temperature: 0°C (32°F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 113.7°
Lunation: 16.6 days
Illumination: 93.3 %

A Solar Christmas

A Christmas Day solar collage
By Erika Rix

2007 12 25

Solar

Erika Rix

PCW Memorial Observatory

Lat 40.01, Long -81.56

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to observe, but I was fortunate today to get
out behind the Maxscope to soak up a bit of Sun in the observatory. Even with the
low altitude of the Sun at 26.5 degrees, the winter is still my favorite time of
year for solar observing.

In the ENE region just inside the limb was a short, but thickened filament visibly
reaching out beyond the limb with two hairline branches, forming an intricate
network of prominences. At lower magnification, this filament looked like two
separate sections. Increasing magnification from 19x to 57x, the outer portion of
this filament looked like an elongated “X” with hair-like branches connecting to the
inner filament that swooped to the north. The prominences consisted of two
brighter, almost “A” shaped areas with several very faint, wispy lines reaching out
to each other as well as other areas of the limb edge.

Adjusting the outer Etalon, I observed a network of hairline fibrils across the disk
that, along with spicules, made a beautiful show of dark mottling across the
Chromospheric network. There was an area of plage to the NE quadrant of the solar
disk. It was separated into two sections, at times looking like three, with a few
very tiny dark dots around it. I didn’t get out my white light filter for
cross-reference, so am not sure if these dark dots were actually pores.

Reaching further NNW, were more filaments, much thinner than the NE filament, but a
little more obvious than fibrils. And then off the limb was a very bright prominence
(at the bottom left of the sketch) that at first glance looked like a pair of cat
ears peeking over the limb. The peaks of it first appeared to be swaying to the
East, but then forty-five minutes later, the two peaks turned toward each other.
Bumping up the magnification allowed me to see the amazing intricate structure of
this prominence.

To the WNW, a tiny little round prominence formed. It was very bright and dense.
Over the observation period, it reached out in a spraying fashion. I thought this
one would change faster or maybe even break off or collapse before I called it a
day. But the prominence stayed the same, only growing a few more tiny fingers off
the limb around it.

There was only one other significant prominence, located to the SE, and several
spicules reaching out from the limb.

The sketch was done on black Strathmore Artagain paper and a combination of white
Conte’ and Prang pencils, sharpened piece of black charcoal, and a white Conte’
crayon. I sprayed it with a fixative afterwards.

Post processing after scanning involved -24 lightness, +15 contrast and then just
cropping and moving the sketches around for the finished collage.

Ecliptical Obliquity

Lunar crater Albategnius
By Dale Holt

I awoke not particularly early at around 6am on Saturday December 1st, well it is
the weekend! I noted a fine gibbous Moon high in the South West from the bedroom
window. Hmm I haven’t made a Lunar sketch for a while, so out I went to the
observatory with my brew of tea and spent a while scanning the terminator for a
likely subject.

I picked out Albategnius. This is an ancient lunar impact crater 129km wide and
4.4km deep located in the central highlands. It is named after the Arabic Prince
and astronomer Al-Battani. The level interior forms a “walled plain”, surrounded
by the high, terraced rim. The outer wall is somewhat hexagon-shaped, and has been
heavily eroded with impacts, valleys and landslips. It attains a height above
4,000 meters along the northeast face. The rim is broken in the southwest by the
smaller crater Klein 44km wide and 1.5km deep.

The third prominent crater featured in my drawing is Halley to the North East of
Albategnius spanning 36km at a depth of 2.5km.

Telescope 14” F5 Newtonian reflector
Denk binoviewer with 2.5x nosepiece
x2 Celestron Axiom 23mm eyepieces giving 193x

Drawing on Black A5 Daler Rowney artist paper using Derwent pastel and water
colour pencils, conte sticks, black ink and blending stumps.

Solar Cornucopia

Solar Observation – November 23, 2007
PCW Memorial Observatory
By Erika Rix

Well the new active region doesn’t appear to have a designation yet (or even if it will), but I was able to make it outside for a few hours to observe. It was only scattered clouds during the observation and a little windy and chilly. But with the Sun at a very low altitude of approximately 27 degrees, it was still a struggle against time to observe in both h-alpha and white light before the trees obscured by view.

Paul opened up the observatory for me and by the time I got my scopes switched on the LXD, he was coming in with a cup of hot tea for me and Riser was curled up in a ball at my feet on his blanket.

The first thing I noticed in the Maxscope was a small bright plage area almost dead center in the solar disk. Bumping up the magnification, I found that it was actually broken off into two sections with fainter “arms” reaching to the east and west of it. There were hints of two darkened spots on either side of it, but I couldn’t confirm it in that bandwidth.

There were three areas of prominences on the Eastern limb, two that are included in the close-up sketches. On the western limb, there were just a few very tiny areas that looked like little spikes.

Just north of the prominence at approximately 90 degrees was a bright patch of plage, almost oblong with the western edge outlined a slightly darker hue. A very thin line of filament branched inward from the limb just north of the 90 degree mark, but could not see it extend outward off the limb against the dark background.

The prominence on the 140 degree mark had a fairly broad sectioned filament running north to south about 15 degrees inside the limb. It was broken into three obvious sections as well as a few very thin lines of filament in the same area.

After a brief few moments enjoying the countryside view from the drop down southern wall of the observatory, I grabbed my clipboard, a few pencils, my empty cup of tea and marched off to the house in my slippers and knitted hat, with Riser following close behind.

The ETX is stored in the house for a few reasons. The observatory isn’t quite big enough to house all the scopes plus it’s easy access for white light viewing to just drag the already set up scope outside from the living room.

Within minutes, I was sat behind the ETX with my sketchpad on my knee, recording what the new active region looked like in white light. There were two dominant smaller spots with an additional fainter spot just off of the larger one. Then, reaching out to the other side of the spots were long thin faint lines. I didn’t notice faculae, but I imagine the dark lines may have been the contrast of border from faculae.

The views were slightly softened today, so it was difficult to view granulation, but limb darkening was very noticeable.

h-alpha sketch media: black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ and Prang pencils, white Conte’ crayon for disk surface

white light media: copy paper, number 2 and .5mm mechanical pencils

Walled Plain Neighbors

Hecataeus and Humboldt
By Frank McCabe

At nightfall a beautiful orange waning gibbous moon just a day past full was rising at the early summer sunrise point on the northeastern horizon. The cold atmosphere was nearly saturated with water and ice creating some ice fog and reduced transparency. By 11:30 pm local time the moon was high enough in the sky for a close up view, although the temperature had plunged to well below freezing. The telescope was completely covered with thick hoar frost at the beginning of my sketching interval. I used extended time on this sketch to go indoors to warm my fingers. My sketching target was crater Humboldt and its smaller neighbor Hecataeus. Upper Imbrium era Humboldt is a large floor fractured, walled plain formation, 207 kilometers across. High on the convex floor a line of central peaks and craters can be seen in the foreshortened view. Just as seen in nearby Petavius (not visible in the sketch) dark pyroclastic deposites were visible at the corners of the floor. Floor fractures here and on neighboring Hecataeus to the left could not be detected visually at the eyepiece because of less than ideal seeing. Hecataeus at 130 kilometers in diameter and slightly older than Humboldt was showing off a substantial wall line on its floor just proximal to crater Humboldt.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x 9”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased after scanning.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 11-25-2007 5:30-7:00 UT
Temperature: -3°C (27°F)
ice fog, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 95.9°
Lunation: 15.3 days
Illumination: 99.4 %

Frank McCabe

Crisium’s Clean Sweep

Mare Crisium
By Richard Handy

The history of the Moon is written by impacts and volcanism. Nowhere is this more apparent than the lunar maria. Mare Crisium, unique among the nearside maria for being completely embayed by the lunar terrae, formed as a result of a 25 km impactor that struck the northeastern quadrant of the Moon some 3.9 to 3.85 Billion years ago. Imagination pales in comparison to the fury of this event. At first impact, all craters that had formed previously in the target area were swept clean of the surface as a deep basin from 10-25 km deep and 500 km in diameter formed. The very surface of the moon, rebounding from the shock of compression, acted like the surface of a pond that was stuck by a pebble, as large undulating seismic waves spread out from the center of the impact, across the basin floor, lifting huge blocks of lunar crust and faulting them in concentric rings at regular intervals. Shock melted material mixed with pulverized regolith called fluidized flow fronts, splayed out radially and nearly horizontal to the surface, creating strange braided landforms and teardrop formations as they tore through crater walls, burying what they did not destroy. A rain of secondary impacts followed, some taking long arching trajectories before impacting several minutes later, hundreds of kilometers away into the distant surrounding terrain. Although the entire basin was created in a few milliseconds, the lavas that cover Mare Crisium itself took hundreds of millions of years to emplace. Impacts that create basins also create deep fractures or faults in the bedrock beneath them. Working in concert with these natural conduits is a mantle that is closer to the surface due to uplift. As a result basaltic lavas found easy access to the surface following these fractures and the Crisium basin gradually became Mare Crisium. Over the course of the next billion years various lava flows erupted onto the mare, covering large portions that had previously been filled in. Nevertheless the mare’s surface is still quite deep in relation to the mean lunar surface, in areas close to 8 km deep according to recent Clementine data. At the western edge of Crisium lies the dramatic butterfly winged rays of Proclus, ejected predominantly lateral to the crater, in two wide 40 degree fans as well as a few subtle down range dustings, the most obvious ray almost bisecting the mare. This is a result of a low angle impact (less than 45 degrees to the surface). As it turns out, Crisium itself is elongated in the east-west direction, perhaps the result of just such a glancing strike.

Here are the sketch details:

Subject: Mare Crisium Rukl: 26, 27, 37, 38
Date: 2-2-07 Started- 6:20 UT End- 8:37 UT (2-3-07)
Seeing: Antoniadi III Weather: Clear
Telescope: 12″ Meade SCT f/10
Binoviewer: W.O. Bino-P with 1.6X Nosepiece.
Eyepieces: W.O. WA 20mm Plossls
Barlow: none
Magnification: 244X
Lunation: 15.1 days Phase: 348.4 deg Illumination: 99.9%
Colongitude: 97.5 deg Lib in Lat.: -1 deg 51 min Lib in Long.: +04 deg 03 min
Sketch medium: White and black Conte’ Crayons on black textured Strathmore paper.
Sketch size: 18″ x 24″.

Capuanus at the Marsh of Epidemics

Capuanus at the Marsh of Epidemics
By Frank McCabe

At my geographic location during the fall, it is not uncommon to have a sequence of days with fog and mist under heavy cloud cover. At sunset the fog lifted and the sky cleared. It was time to take advantage of this break to observe and sketch.
The sketching target I chose near the terminator is Pre-Imbrian era crater Capuanus. This ancient crater rests on the shore of Palus Epidemiarum. At 58 kilometers in diameter, this is a large crater with extensive rim damage from multiple crater impacts. A narrow gap in the low north wall nearly connects the crater floor to the marsh. Brightly illuminated in the rising sun is the high western wall which towers at 2.5 kilometers above the crater floor. The basaltic lava on the floor of the crater appeared mostly dark. Two of the domes or dome-like rises could be detected on the southern crater floor. These volcanoes were active during the age of prokaryotic life here on earth 3.5 billion years ago. Ridges extending from the west of the crater, line up nicely with the margins of both mare Nubium and mare Humorum. Perhaps these are remains of a basin rim which was part of one of these seas.Across the floor of Palus Epidemiarum a wide segment of western Rima Hesiodus could be seen approaching the northern most of these ridge reminants. Two hours after I began sketching clouds moved in and closed my window on the moon.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x12”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased after scanning.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 4mm eyepiece 362x
Date: 11-20-2007 0:05-1:40 UT
Temperature: 14°C (58°F)
fog, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 33°
Lunation: 10 days
Illumination: 72.2 %

Frank McCabe