Waning Blue

Daytime Moon

Daytime Moon
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

23 Day Old Waning Crescent

When the moon crossed my meridian today it was more than 75° above the southern horizon. That was about one hour before I began this sketch. The last time I purchased sketching paper I bought a few sheets of light blue paper for day time lunar and planet sketching. This August has been unusual for Chicago, Illinois, in that we have had many days with cool temperatures and low humidity. Today again was one of those very transparent days although clouds were frequent and stopped me from sketching from time to time. Actual sketching time was about 45 minutes over a two hour period.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: light blue drawing paper cut to 12’x14”, white Conte’
pastel pencils, a light blue Crayola pencil, a blending stump and my index finger too. No adjustments were need after scanning except size reduction.
Telescope: 4.25 inch f/ 5 Dobsonian and 12mm eyepiece 45x

Date: 8-24-2008 13:00-15:00 UT
Temperature: 20° C (68° F)
Partly cloudy, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 188°
Phase: 262.9°
Lunation: 23 days
Illumination: 44 %
Libration Latitude -6°
Libration Longitude -1°

Frank McCabe

2 thoughts on “Waning Blue”

  1. Rony,

    Thanks, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Dry, transparent, warm air with the moon nearly overhead. That does not happen often in the Great Lakes region I live in.

    Frank

Leave a Reply