8 Day Old Moon
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe
This was my last chance in very pleasant unseasonable weather to comfortably capture the entire visible lunar surface at once. I drew this moon sketch on a long 7” x 14” piece of Strathmore 400 Artagain paper with the aid of an 8” protractor for the initial semicircle. After I finished the drawing, I made a background change that Rony DeLaet taught me to do with a previous whole moon sketch. I added a larger black background by first darkening the sketch electronically with Microsoft Office Picture Manager by a value of -5. I then pasted the image to a black background using Microsoft Paint. To draw this sketch I needed a small scope so I used the finder scope of my 18” which doubles as a 4.25” f / 5 Dobsonian. Some of my favorite views of the moon have been witnessed with this little scope. With the moon at 48% illumination the curvature of the terminator in this very late waxing crescent phase was just discernable and gave the moon a slight 3-D effect at the eyepiece. The large crater Maginus is the one poking out beyond the terminator near the top of this south up sketch.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils and a blending stump and my index finger too. Brightness was reduced by a value of -5 (using Microsoft OfficePicture Manager) after scanning.
Telescope: 4.25 inch f/ 5 Dobsonian and 21mm eyepiece 26x
Date: 11-05-2008 to 11-06-2008 / 23:00-1:00 UT
Temperature: 20° C (68° F)
Partly cloudy, breezy
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 3.5 °
Lunation: 7.99 days
Illumination: 48.0 %