Category: terrae

Anaximander environs

Anaximander environs - December 14, 2013
Anaximander environs – December 14, 2013

Tonight, DEC, 14th, 2013. I could have a brief time for an observation/sketching on the nothern moon limb ,

the environs of the crater [ Carpenter, Anaximander, J . Herschel ] .

I have focused 8″ refractor at the curiously connected shadow casted by the splitted rim- walls of each of Anaximander,s and of J, Herschel, s .

Although, seeing was bad , I observed/ sketched this for 40-50 minutes.

—————-

8″ f12 a chinise made achromatic lens , x340

location; Backyard home in South. Korea

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

Date of observe/ sketch ; 12, 14, 2013

Lunar North Polar Region

Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014
Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014
Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014
Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014

Lunar North Polar Region

For several nights this week the lunar North Pole has been tilted more towards earth due to favorable lunar libration in latitude. It has been a good opportunity to view craters such as Whipple, Peary, Byrd and others. I had a clear night with average seeing so I took advantage of the opportunity to sketch the illuminated region near the pole. At my location the Moon was at more than 60 degrees above the horizon which also helped with the time needed to complete a sketch.

Sketching and Equipment:

For this sketch, I used black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9” x 12”, white and

black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps.

Telescope: 13.1 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece (333x) riding on an equatorial platform

Date: 04-09-2014, 01:00-02:35 UT

Temperature: 3° C (38° F)

Clear, calm

Seeing: Average – Antoniadi III

Transparency 4/5

Colongitude 16.2 °

Lunation 9 days

Illumination 63.9 %

Frank McCabe

Ten Minute Tycho

Object name: Lunar crater Tycho and rays

Object Type: Lunar crater, rays

Location: York, UK

Date: 18th March 2011

Time: 20.30-20.40 UT

Media: graphite pencil, white paper

Instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 152mm f8 Dobsonian, 25mm e.p.

As I took in the beauty of the full moon at perigee, I noticed a small black object zip across the face of the moon. I thought I’d probably seen a satellite, but, a minute or two later I saw another one, and then another one, and then another, and they were definitely birds. They were all travelling in the same direction: North. After waiting about half an hour and seeing about twenty of them, and trying to take in the jizz of the form, the best I could do was narrow them down to swallows and martins. Do they migrate at night? Well, if so, this was a unique way to see my first hirundines of the year.

Seeing was very wobbly, preventing me from using high powers on the scope, so I eased back into low power and sketched the crater Tycho and its rays, which you can also see with the naked eye as they splat half way across the face of the full moon. I like sketching fast; it forces me to find the key features first. Tycho itself is not huge as lunar craters go, but it’s visible because it’s young and its rays have not yet eroded away. It’s estimated to be about 100 million years old which means that some dinosaurs and mammals probably saw it hit; it must have been spectacular.

The crater is named after Tycho Brahe, one of my heros. His accurate measurements of the stars and planets led to the later discovery, by Kepler, that the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, which in turn is the basis of universal gravitation. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Tycho paved the way for our modern understanding of the universe. And he has a rather beautiful crater named after him too.

One of the things that I spotted for the first time was that there are fewer bright rays pointing west (top in the picture), suggesting that the impactor that formed Tycho came in from that direction.

Clavius out of the shadows

Clavius
Lunar crater
Hartlepool, UK
14th March 2011
Drawn digitally using pencils, chalk and blenders.

I drew this at the eyepiece of my 10 inch Newtonian a with a magnification of x375 using regular pencils then redrew it indoors on the computer digitally.
Apart from the important stuff like the positioning and shape of the main craters the next thing I think is the tone of the surrounding area, trying to match the lights and darks but of course trying to simplify what you see.

Beautiful Highland

The data of the drawing: Nonius K – Aliacensis – Werner crater
10.02.2011.

Telescope: 3″ F/11 Newton and 7,5 mm Super Plossl eyepiece

Observing Location: Zakany – Hungary, 46° 15′ N 16° 57’E elev.: 129m
This digital drawing preparated GIMP 2.6 programs.

Thank you for it!

Clear Sky !

Tamas Bognar

http://tamasasztro.tk

skype : bognartamas
msn : bognart@gmail.com

Progressive Moon

Object Name: Moon
Object Type: moon
Location: São Bernardo do Campo – SP – Brazil
Date: (5 nights – 2010)
Media: 0.5mm mechanical pencil on white paper
Instrument: binoculars Celestron UpClose 10×50 Wide Angle (7º)

Additional information:
The millions of lights from a huge metropolis (more than 20 million people) added to the heavy pollution do affect the sky observation. However, I found out an astonishing Moon through my binoculars, and whenever the sky was clear, I sketched it. I’ve done it from my apartment, fourth floor, through the window. The purpose was to register the position of the terminator, and how some features (specially the seas and Tyco crater) change their appearance according to the incidence of the sunlight. In this sketch we can also notice that there’s no “dark side of the moon”, in fact there’s a “hidden side of the moon”.
I can barely wait for my next vacations in order to go to Itajobi, on countryside, to keep observing under dark skies.
Clear skies to all.

Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

Waning Moon High in the East

Waning Moon High in the East

On the night of September 27-28, 2010, I witnessed the rising gibbous moon paired with the Pleiades near the northeastern horizon. By placing my thumb over the moon the seven sisters were clearly visible further to the north. Together they began their march across the sky after 9pm local time.
After I finished some indoor chores I returned to the telescope and set up to do some sketching.
Initially I considered sketching both of them together but soon changed my mind to go after just the moon. I spend about two hours recording as much as I could see before fatigue began forcing me to erase with greater frequency. This is my lunar sketching result.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used black sketching paper 9″ x 12″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils, blending stumps, a gum eraser and brush. Brightness was slightly increased (+1) using the scanner

Scope 4.25″ f/5 Newtonian scope at 45x

Date: 9-28-2010, 1:00-3:00 local time
Temperature: 14° C (58° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 151.6 °
Lunation: 20 days
Illumination: 78.3% Waning Gibbous

Frank McCabe

A Triplet of Craters in the Southern Highlands

Crater Cuvier

Craters Cuvier, Heraclitus, and Licetus
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

It has been a long time since I have attempted to use charcoal pencils on white sketching paper but I found an unused pair among my drawing supplies. They turned out to be less messy than ones I have used in the past. I liked the way they worked on the medium weight drawing paper I had on hand.

Two years ago in March of 2006 the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft Smart-1 imaged the crater Cuvier to test the high resolution camera (AMIE) with great success. I noted this crater was well placed along the terminator last evening for sketching. No sooner than having seen it, I decided it would be my target for sketching. Cuvier a 77km walled-plain crater is eastern most in the sketch. The crater has a nearly flat, lava flooded floor and at 3.5 billion years old is still younger than its neighbor to the southwest Heraclitus. Elongated crater Heraclitus is from the Pre-Imbrian period and dates back more than 4 billion years. A central mountain ridge runs down the center of this crater from northeast to southwest. This ridge line was illuminated in the morning sunlight. Within the shadow of this crater 25% of the dark southwest floor is occupied by Heraclitus D. Finally the large 74 km. crater to the northwest is Pre-nectarian crater Licetus. It like Cuvier infringes upon Heraclitus.

It was a beautiful night to observe and sketch the moon.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: White CPP sketching paper, 9”x 12”, Number 4B charcoal pencils, a blending stump, gum eraser and an eraser shield. After scanning, Brightness was slightly decreased (-2) and contrast increased (+2) using Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 6-11-2008 1:05 – 2:05 UT
Temperature: 24° C (76° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co-longitude: 358.9°
Lunation: 7.29 days
Illumination: 55.1 %
Phase: 84.1°
Observing Location: +41°37′ +87° 47′

Frank McCabe

Youth and Beauty

Tycho crater

 

By Frank McCabe   The grip of winter is loosening just a little with breaks in the nearly constant
cloud cover and temperatures occasionally going above the freezing point. I am
looking forward to nights of observing that don’t involve shivering. This night
although below freezing was wind free and temperature tolerable. The promise of
spring is nearly here.

  Tycho crater in the southern highlands was the target of my sketch this evening.
At 85 kilometers in diameter this large, young, complex crater exhibits fantastic
terraced walls and slopes with a large flat floor partly strewn with melt debris.
A pair of central peaks casting shadows to the southwest could clearly be seen. A
distance of 4.8 kilometers separates the floor from the crater rim and the central
peak stands tall at 2.4 kilometers. Wall slumping down to the west floor puts it a
little higher than the eastern floor. Rays extend outward from Tycho in most
directions. Some of these bright rays reach out 2000 kilometers across the lunar
surface. Tycho at 108 million years old is the youngest large crater visible on
the earth facing side of the moon. In the 1960’s this crater was briefly
considered as a landing target for an Apollo moon mission. Surveyor 7 spacecraft
soft landed successfully north of the crater in January of 1968. Ray distribution
from Tycho which is best seen at or near full moon, illustrates that the impactor
of mountain size came in at a shallow angle to the surface from the west and
ejected lunar highland crust and blocks mostly in non-western directions.

  Land vertebrate life on earth was thriving quite nicely at this time since this
was 43 million years before the Chicxulub cratering event here on earth which
ended the good times for the “terrible lizards”.

  Apollo 17 astronauts collected among the rocks and soil returned to earth samples
of the Tycho ray debris at the Taurus-Littrow valley including calcium rich
anorthosites that aided in dating the Tycho crater event.
  
  
  Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 8”x 11”, white and
black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased
(-7) and contrast increased (+5) after scanning using Microsoft Office Picture
Manager.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 3-17-2008 0:45 – 1:55 UT
Temperature: -0.8°C (31°F)
high cloud cover and high humidity, calm
Seeing:   Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 28.1°
Lunation: 9.3 days
Illumination: 77.2 %
  Phase:   57.0°
Observing Location: +41°37′ +87° 47′
 
Frank McCabe