Thank You, Summer Twilight!

* Object Name: Moon
* Object Type: Moon
* Location: Deventer, The Netherlands
* Date: June 27, 2010
* Media: White pastel pencil on black paper

Sketching the Moon with pastel is becoming the most satisfying part of the hobby for me. Especially during midsummer, when the nights aren’t dark from my home so deep-sky isn’t even an option. During winter I hated the Moon for ruining my deep-sky views in those rare clear nights, but this summer I discovered that the Moon is one of the rewarding targets to view and to sketch. Thank you, summer twillight!

This is the sketch I made last night. It was the lowest full moon of 2010 and it hovered beautifully above the neighbours roof, about 15 degrees high. I took my little refractor (60mm f/6,9) again, put it on the desk in my hobby room and started to draw the Moon with a white pastel pencil on black A3-paper. I used a very basic K18mm eyepiece. The disk of the Moon is 8″ in diameter. The sketch took 2 hours to complete.

Kind regards,

Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl