rays – Page 2 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

A Near Full Moon Study

Hi all,

Tonight we had one of the clearest nights for a long time here in Sydney, and I wasn’t about to let a near full Moon spoil the occasion! So I pulled out my easy to set up 8” dob, and made this quick sketch over the next hour. Since this scope is an f/4, I used my 30 year old RKE eyepiece to give me the best low power image available to me. OH, how I love this eyepiece!

I even had a nice surprise too. For one very brief moment, a satellite crossed through my field of view. It’s happened many times to me, BUT this one happened across the disk of the Moon!! At first I thought it was a balloon, but then it occurred to me “since when does a balloon have spiky bits hanging off it?!!!”

Scope: 8” f/4 newtonian, dob mounted
Eyepiece: Edmund Scientific RKE 28mm, 29X
Filters: 2 polarizing filters
Media: China graph & graphite pencils on black paper.

Clear skies,

Alex M

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

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

Waning Crescent Moon in Early Twilight

I was up early on this morning getting a look at some of the winter stars and witnessed a beautiful 25 day old waning moon. The earthshine was poor but after a look through a small Newtonian scope I decided to make a quick 40 minute sketch. It was a fine view.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used black construction 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 2.5” f/10 Newtonian scope at 25x

Date: 9-4-2010, 10:00-10:40 UT
Temperature: 16° C (60° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 220.2 °
Lunation: 25.3 days
Illumination: 22.1% Waning Crescent

Frank McCabe

Pastel Moon

Full Moon
By Krzysztof Pieszczoch

I was waiting on this full Moon. It was my first experience with pastel crayon. I like sketching through the binocular 🙂

Object name: Moon
Object type: Moon
Location: Tarnów , Poland
Date: 27 May 2010 r.
Time: 21:30 UT
Artist: Krzysztof Pieszczoch (Astrokrzychu)
Equipment used: Binocular 16X50 (2″) FOV 4,25 deg. and 7X50 FOV 7,5 deg.
– white pastel and black paper

Weather conditions:
– warm evening
– beautiful clear sky

Yours sincerely,
Krzysztof Pieszczoch

Whole Moon in Pastel

Moon
By Roel Weijenberg

* Object Name: Moon
* Object Type: Moon
* Location: Deventer, The Netherlands
* Date: May 25, 2010
* Media: White pastel pencil on black paper

Yesterday the Moon was very low in the sky (maximum altitude 20 degrees) so I couldn’t see him from my backyard. So I took a very old 60mm f/6,9 refractor inside the house, placed it on a EQ-1 on top of my desk. At 32x the Moon was a nice bowl, almost full. I sketched it with a white pastel pencil on black paper. The disk on the paper was approx, 5″ in diameter. It took me about 30 minutes to complete this sketch. Next time I’ll probably use a larger disk to draw finer details, but this was my first try using white pastel on black paper so I’m pretty satisfied for now.

Kind regards,

Roel Weijenberg

Gibbous Moon With Sinus Iridum Detail

Moon – Gibbous With Sinus Iridum Detail
By Mark Seibold

Technical Information regarding sketch:

A 19″ X 25″ pastel sketch [with the moons disc drawn at 12 ¾”] on black Strathmore Artagain pastel paper with use of various soft to hard pastel chalks on December 26th 2009 at 5UT ~ 9UT, partly produced from direct eyepiece observation over 2 to 3 hours, then finished indoors with photos taken from the eyepiece to produce a detailed close-up of the Sinus Iridum feature at the terminator. An artists conception was added at bottom as a final touch for a total work time of 4 ~ 5 hours. Observation was through my 10.1 inch f/4.5 Newtonian telescope with use of 32mm, 12mm, 9.7mm Super Plossls and 6mm Orthoscopic eyepieces. Ambient outdoor temperature in the 750 ft elevation foothills, west of the Cascades and Mount Hood, 30 miles east of Portland Oregon was approximately 34 degrees F. Wind gusting to 20 ~ 30 mph and subsiding to still at times.

*A slightly higher quality image may be viewed at
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a109/markseibold/Moon_PastelGibbous6_SinusIr.jpg.

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

Goldschmidt Rays and the Moon’s North Limb

Plato, Goldschmidt and Northern Limb
Sketch and Details by Deirdre Kelleghan

February 28th / March 1st 2010 23:20 UT – 00 :35 UT
200 mm Dobsonian Telescope FL 1,200
8mm TVP eyepiece = 150X
Goldschmidt rays and the Moons North limb

South is up in this sketch because that is the way I viewed it and sketched it. Pastels & Conte on black paper.

Our beautiful Snow moon was 99 .9 % drenched in the suns light when I went observing on the last day in February 2010. Along the NW limb several craters were on view in the libration zone, it was my intention to make a sketch of these elusive features. They presented on the limb as dark deep long shadows edged with sharp bright lines against the blackness of space.

However while these were interesting, my eye was magnetized toward the brightness of Goldschmidt and its ejecta rays, giving great form to the area. Several of these long dark lines were also on view on the edge of the limb close to Goldschmidt and Herschel . It was so visually interesting to observe the contrasts on the limb when the moon was so full, a black and white merry dance of slow movement and rich structure.

Plato never looked so dark and flat ,its black floor absorbing the suns light when most of the surrounding area was throwing it toward my eye. I adored the tiny pure white rim sections singing in the light. My sketch wandered across part of Mare Frigoris , the area around Plato and includes part of Mons Teneriffe .

—
Deirdre Kelleghan
Vice Char IFAS
Outreach IFAS
National Coordinator Astronomers Without Borders Ireland .
http://www.irishastronomy.org/
http://www.deirdrekelleghan.com/
Tweets by skysketcher

Kepler to Marius

Kepler, Marius and Surroundings
Move mouse over image to view labels.
Sketch and Details by Peter Mayhew

Object Name: Craters Kepler and Marius
Object Type: Lunar craters
Location: York, UK
Date: 28th December 2009

The terminator of the day-12 moon struck through crater Marius. With Kepler to its left, it was a fine sight. I was surprised to observe that Marius is larger than Kepler, although of course the latter is more striking to the eye due to its rays. Wrinkle ridges north and south of Marius appeared hummocky by virtue of their crossing the dome-ridden Marius Hills, to the west of Marius on and beyond the terminator. I include a labelled version.