maria – Page 4 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Almost Full Moon

Moon - March 25, 2013 — Moon – March 25, 2013

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)

Sirsalis and Damoiseau

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

Thia (Cindy) Krach

Mare Crisium Illuminated on the Young Moon

Mare Crisium – Hover mouse over image to view labels

Mare Crisium is that interesting isolated sea on the northeastern side of the visible lunar surface. Not long before beginning the sketch, it became fully illuminated.

The Nectarian Period impact event that formed this feature occurred more than 3.8 billion years ago. The mare portion of the basin is about 500 kilometers across. In the grazing sunlight on the floor, wrinkled ridges were visible. Also on the western floor craters Picard (24 km.), Peirce (19 km.) and Swift (11km.) stood out in the low light. I could see the lighter gray bench lava that partly buried craters here such as Yerkes (37 km.). Tall flat top mountains (massifs) beyond the shore stand at 2-5 kilometers above the sea. Both promontoria Lavinium and Olivium stood out clearly in very brief moments.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: 400 series black Strathmore Artagain paper 9″x 9″, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils , and Conte’crayons, a blending stump, plastic eraser.
Telescope: 13.1 inch f/ 6 Dobsonian with 6mm (332x)
Date: 2-13 & 14-2013 23:00 – 00:45 UT
Temperature: 1.7°C (35°F)
Weather: clear, calm
Seeing: not good Antoniadi IV
Co longitude: 310.9°
Lunation: 3.69 days
Illumination: 15.7%

Frank McCabe

Posidonius and Northern Serpentine Ridge

With the first clear night in more than one week, I was able to catch the sunset across crater Posidonius (99 km) at the northeastern edge of Mare Serentatis. Posidonius A (11 km.) , the highest of the small central peaks and the tilted and uplifted concentric ridge were the last features catching the light at sunset inside the rim. Also visible and included in this sketch was the northern most portion of Serpentine Ridge. As temperatures were falling throughout the night, I found myself stopping to warm my hands indoors not once but several times. The lunar viewing was excellent this night.

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

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece 161X
Date: 01-02-2013: 04:30 – 06:00 UT
Temperature: – 16° C (2° F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 150°
Lunation: 19.83 days
Illumination: 79.6%

Frank McCabe

Waxing Gibbous Moon

Object Name Moon
Object Type Planet
Location Valencia (Spain)
Date 27th november 2012
Media: graphite pencil and white paper

Dear reader,

Finally the clouds have gone so I tried to get a nice view of the moon. It was also a photo session so after finishing the previous sketch I took a picture that it was useful to catch many details from the moon. This is my first drawing objetct and it was a pleasure to work with this amazing object day after day.

El cosmos de Tajeiro

I Hope you like.

Lunar “Yin-Yang”

Hi!

I have always been fascinated by the shadows on lunar-terminator.

This is a contact of the brightness with the dark side. It’s looks like an ancient symbol “Yin-Yang”. The eternal meeting of day and night. The marvelous spectacle of metaphysical shadows dancing in craters basins.

These seemingly chaotic formations in fact fascinate observer by their complexity and repetition of forms!

Oh! I love sketching the Moon!

With a large mirror (41cm) and eyepiece with good contrast we can admire a lots of details on the lunar surface

My telescope Capella 41 + 14mm ES eyepiece, pencils + paper.

Yours, Robert
Sketch details:
Object Name: The Lunar “Yin-Yang”,
Object Type: Moon
Location: Poland, Oborniki
Date: 20-11-2012
Equipment: Newtonian telescope 409/1800 (Capella 41), 14mm ES eyepiece
Object: – Artist: Robert Twarogal (Ignisdei)

Craters Lansberg and Reinhold

Both of these craters look similar when their floors are in shadow as was the case when I viewed them. Lansberg (40 km) is a walled plain crater sitting where Mare Insularum meets south Imbrium. This old impact dates back to the Upper Imbrian and is near the center of my sketch. Reinhold (49 km) is a prominent lunar impact crater of the Eratosthenian period and is also on Mare Insularum. It is below Lansberg near the bottom center of the sketch which by direction is north as per the inverted Newtonian telescope view. At the top of the sketch (south) I was able to catch the Riphaeus Mountains receiving first light during this waxing gibbous phase.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Canson paper 9″x 10″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps. Sketch was scanned

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 242x
Date: 10-25-2012, 00:30 – 01:25 UT
Temperature: 16°C (60° F)
hazy, high clouds, calm
Seeing: average Antoniadi III
Transparency: poor
Colongitude: 29.0 °
Lunation: 9.52 days
Illumination: 79.0 %

Frank McCabe

Western rim of Mare Crisium

Mare Crisium (Move mouse over image to view labels)

2012 09 04, 0330 UT – 0615 UT Mare Crisium
Erika Rix, Texas – www.pcwobservatory.com

AT6RC f/9 1370mm, LXD75, Baader Planetarium Hyperion 8-24mm Mark III (FOV 68 degrees at 171x), no filter
84F, 56% H, winds gusting 5-10 mph, clear, Antoniadi IV increasing to II, T 3/6
Alt: 11deg 43´, Az: 83deg 22´ to Alt: 46deg 21´, Az: 105deg 21´
Phase: 318.4 degrees, Lunation: 17.48 d, Illumination: 87.4%
Lib. Lat: -03:07, Lib. Long: +03.74

Type: Sea (Sea of Crisis)
Geological period: Nectarian (From -3.92 billion years to -3.85 billion years)
Dimension: 740km
Floor: lava-filled and is ~ 1.8 km below lunar datum
Outer rim: ~3.34 km above lunar datum

Eyepiece sketch on black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, Derwent watercolor pencil, black charcoal, black oil pencil.

The evening started off with DSO hunting while waiting for the Moon to come up, even though the stars were and faint galaxies were starting to wash out from the moonlight rounding the eastern horizon. I started a sketch of M12 that will have to wait for another night to complete when the Moon isn’t so much of a factor.

Once the Moon rose between two short junipers behind me, I switched to black paper and scanned the terminator. Mare Crisium looked like it was taking a bite out of the Moon. I’ve always been a bit intimidated at sketching rough terrain, but took a stab at it nevertheless. Sketching in the highlights makes it incredibly easier in fast moving areas such as along the terminator. The trick is to have very sharp pencils at hand, and I made sure of that during set up before it got dark outside – although I did have to resharpen once or twice during the session (as well as stand up and stretch.) It was a rush against time to render the basin’s western edge before the shadows swallowed the view.

I began with the inner ridge line along the terminator, marking each highlighted crest individually with a very sharp Conte’ pastel pencil. Then as quickly and accurately as I could, started working my way west, alternating between the Conte’, charcoal, Derwent and oil pencils, focusing first on the highlights, then the shadows, followed by albedo.

Of particular interest, Crisium sports the crash landing site(although not visible from last night’s lunar phase) of the Soviet’s Luna 15 in 1969 and the landing site of Luna 24, 1976, when soil samples where successfully brought back to earth.

This was my first time observing the Moon with the AT6RC and once seeing sharpened up, the views were crisp and clear with good contrast. It’s especially good that we’ve never had to collimate this scope and I’m looking forward to trying it out on Jupiter soon.