Craters Clavius and Blancanus
Among the large craters of the lunar southern highlands, two nearly 4 billions old
impacts stood out on this morning before my local sunrise. These craters are 225
km.diameter Clavius and smaller 109 km. Blancanus. Clavius is not only old and
large but is blanketed with numerous craters and craterlets. At the center of this
large crater are the reduced remains of once regal central peaks. The atmosphere
was steady enough to pick out cratelets less than 1.5 km in diameter during
periods of excellent seeing. Crater Clavius is famous for its semicircular crater
sequence of decreasing size beginning with 49 km. Rutherfurd at the inner
southeastern wall and continuing with 27km. D, 20 km. C, 12 km N, 11.3 km J and
7.5 km JA. The north-northeastern rim of Clavius has a large crater resting it.
This 52 km. diameter crater is Porter. A broad crater ray was clearly visible
crossing the floor of Clavius just to the west of Porter and Clavius C. Much of
the floor of crater Clavius
remains smooth which implies the flow of melted rock in the past. Some geologists
speculate it is from the ejecta of the Orientale basin. Some small secondary crater
chains point back in that direction.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x12”, white and
black Conte’
pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased after
scanning.
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 9-2-2007 8:15-9:25 UT
Temperature: 17°C (62°F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi II-III
Co longitude: 53.9°
Lunation: 20.39 days
Illumination: 70 %
Frank McCabe
Dear Frank,
Excellent work as always. I can spot your style instantaneously now. I find viewing others work just makes me tingle with desire to get to my own eyepiece and create.
Warm regards, Dale
Dale,
Thank you much for the compliment. I appreciate it especially coming from such an excellent artist as yourself.
Frank
Oh…my God!!!!
Excellent work as always,about the Moon.
Peter
Peter,
Thank you very much. Trying not to sound like a broken record, I especially appreciate this from an artist of your skills.
Frank
Frank,
This is another lunar masterpiece! It is photographic quality at the least. Excellent work!
Jason
Jason,
Thank you very much. If you want to see the great sketch of Clavius go back to 8/26/2007.
Frank
One of the nicest lunar sketches I’ve ever seen! I can only say, in honesty: “WOOOOWWWWW!” I just read an article in S&T (Sept. 07) about scientific artist Roger Hayward (name?) and this drawing is easily in the same class.
A gorgeous rendition full of deep texture and fabulous contrast and dimension!
What a treat! More, please!
-Andy
(CN: andyenglish)
Andy,
Thank you very much for the nice compliment. I would certainly like to see more of your great sketches here.
Frank