Modeling the Moon

Inspired by the beautiful model of Archimedes by Richard Handy, I organized a clay workshop during the weekly gathering of our local astronomy club a few weeks ago.
Modeling the Moon is not new at all. The Scottish engineer and inventor James Nasmyth (1808-1890) already made some impressive plaster models of the Moon based on his visual observations. More information on this can be found on the internet, check it out!

Chosen subject for my sculpture was Tycho, since the Japanese Selene mission (Jaxa) yielded some extremely detailed pictures of this crater – available for everyone on the web. Alternative option would be crater Clavius.

Armed with only primitive tools (bare hands and a wooden clothes-peg) to work with, and no experience in clay-modeling (occasional childhood experience set aside) a group of 15 enthusiasts bravely accepted the challenge. After about 90 minutes of hard work combined with healthy doses of humor and self-relativism everyone was quite impressed with the result. You really should try this yourself!

The attached photos are unfortunately not the best quality, however they provide a good impression of what to be expected. Hope you like it!

Thanks at Paul Aka for correcting my English.

Clear skies
Jef De Wit

Object Type and Name: crater Tycho and Clavius
Date: 5 May 2011
Medium: clay, hands and a clothes-peg