A Rushed First Quarter

Hi all,

Time at the eyepiece has been scarce so far this year. And as yet, still no productive time at a dark sky site either. Thankfully we still have the Moon!

This one hour sketch of the first quarter phase of the Moon was a bit of a race. That was all the time I had before the Moon went behind the neighbour’s palm tree, plus conditions were cold and windy. I guess as close to “Extreme Astro Sketching” as I’d like to get to, LOL!

This was also the first sketch undertaken with a real old girl scope, a beautiful early 1980’s orange tube C8. No GPS, no periodic error control, no Go-to, no special lens coatings, doesn’t even make me coffee. Just a little clock drive. Cool.

Object: first quarter phase Moon
Scope: 30 year old C8
Gear: GSO Superview 30mm, 66X
Date: 11th May, 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Conditions: Poor, windy and cold
Media: White and black charcoal pencils, white and black Chinagraph, & graphite pencil on A4 size black paper.

Cheers,

Alex M.