Southern Oceanus Procellarum
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe
Shortly after sunset I turned my telescope in the direction of the moon and was planning to sketch the crater Longomontanus. However that all changed when I spotted a ghostly, mostly buried crater in southern Oceanus Procellarum right at the terminator. For June 10, 2006 at C. Wood’s site – LPOD, you can find a photo of this region of the moon. Superimposed over this crater are a series of dorsa (ridges) known as Dorsa Euclides F. The lava in this region is not quite thick enough to cover all the evidence that this unnamed crater existed. To the east the 12 kilometer Copernician period crater surrounded by bright ejecta at the center of the sketch is Euclides. Just to the east of this crater are the Riphaeus mountains. North of the mountains you will see four of the Lansberg craters with the largest being Lansberg D (11 km.).
The two small Eratosthenian craters at the far left side of the sketch are Kuiper and Eppinger both at about 6 km. in size.
I love these views that inspire us to capture them with a sketch.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9”x12”, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and a blending stump. After scanning, Brightness was decreased (-5) and contrast increased (+3) using Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
Telescope: 18 inch f/ 5 Dobsonian and 12 mm eyepiece 167x
Date: 8-12-2008, 1:35 – 3:05 UT
Temperature: 21° C (71° F)
Partly cloudy, hazy, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi II – III
Colongitude 35.8 °
Lunation 10.6 days
Illumination 78.9 %
Frank McCabe