Sunrise at Mare Crisium

Mare Crisium
Mare Crisium

Hi,

find attached a charcoal and pastel sketch of the sunrise at Mare Crisium. I hope you like it.

Object Name: Mare Crisium, eastern part
Object Type: Lunar Maria
Location: Germany, Dusseldorf area
Date: 2015-03-22, 2020-2100 CET
Media: chalk pastel pencil and charcoal pencil on black sketching cardbox
Telescope: Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT
Eyepiece: TS HR Planetary 7mm

Clear skies

Achim

Craters Diophantus and Delisle

Craters Diophantus and Delisle
Craters Diophantus and Delisle
Craters Diophantus and Delisle - Labeled
Craters Diophantus and Delisle – Labeled

On the western side of Mare Imbrium are craters Diophantus (19 km.) and Delisle (25 km.) with mons Delisle in between and closer to the crater of the same name. A dorsum or ridge here is perhaps a buried crater rim and creates a sharp edge curving demarcation on the terminator side of the Moon at the time of sketching. Some of the massifs in this region such as mons La Hire (1.5 km. high), mons Vinogradov (1.4 km.) and mons Delisle( 0.8km. high) are described by some geologists as likely left over remnants from the rings of the Imbrium impact. Additional craters seen at this observation included Euler (2.8 km.), Artsimovich (9 km.), Gruithuisen (17 km.) and Heis (15 km.)and numerous smaller unnamed.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x 12”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils, a soft charcoal pencil, brush and a blending stump.

Telescope: 13.1 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 221x
Date: 01-31-2015, 03:10 – 04:25 UT
Temperature: -7°C (20°F)
clear, breezy
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 38.7°
Lunation: 10.33 days
Illumination: 84.9 %
Phase: 45.8°

Frank McCabe

Moon at 2 Day Lunation

Moon - 22 March 2015
Moon – 22 March 2015

This sketch is one of the renderings I am doing for the Astro League’s Sketching Award Program. The moon was in Aries as it was setting over the Pacific. I was able to get some of Mare Crisium. This was done at the Haleakala Amateur Astronomers’ site at the summit of Haleakala this past Sunday, March 22. 2015. I viewed it with my C925/CGEM on a pier with a 2″ Swan 40mm EP at 58X.

Lunar Crater Gassendi

Crater Gassendi - 31 January 2015
Crater Gassendi – 31 January 2015

Hi all,

tonight I had a look outside and – yeah, no clouds and clear skies.

So I took out the 10″ f/5 truss dobsonian and prepared for lunar sketching: Today the floor-fractured crater Gassendi attracted me and presented nice central peaks and its rimae on its ground.

Telescope: 10″ f/5 Martini Dobsonian

Eyepiece: Skywatcher Planetary 5mm

Date & Time: Jan 31st, 2015 / 1925-2015 CET

Place: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany

Technique: chalk, charcoal and white pastel on black sketching cardbox paper

Hope you like the sketch.

Clear skies!

Achim

Bullialdus y Compañía

Bullialdus Crater - 29 January 2015
Bullialdus Crater – 29 January 2015

Object Name: Bullialdus cráter and company
Object Type: Lunar crater
Location : Granadero Baigorria, Santa Fe, Argentina
Date 29 – 01 – 15
Media: Pencil HB, 2B , 4B , Blending stump, white paper and Software Paint.NET to invert colours and minor details

This crater is located in the western part of Nibium Sea. It has a dimension of approximately 60 x 60 km . It is accompanied by Bullialdus A and Bullialdus B, two craters considerably smaller.Like the idea was to draw the area , you can see the KONIG crater (20 x 20 km), which is a little more to the west, and LUBINETZKY crater . The observation was made with NW telescope Sky watcher 150/750, with a TMB II 5 eyepiece

Western Highland Peninsula Craters

Western Highland Peninsula Craters
Western Highland Peninsula Craters

For those that observe and sketch the Moon, trying to pick targets just before, just at and just after first quarter can be much fun because there are so many choices in good relief. On this occasion I chose two large walled plain craters near the terminator. Albategnius (129 km.) the younger of the two ancient craters and further from the terminator it was displaying its central peak (1.5km. tall) and large crater Klein (44 km.) on its rim. Crater Halley (36 km.) to the northeast is notably a kilometer deeper than Klein and although further from the terminator has a completely shadowed floor with that greater depth.

The other large crater Ptolemaeus (154km.) was on the terminator at the beginning of my sketch.
With the sun so low the rim shadows were long and were creating a special effect. In combination with the rim shadow of little crater Ammonius (8.5 km.) I could see old Nesse. Jim Adlhoch describes the floor shadow as looking like the head and neck of the Loch Ness monster- see Lunar Photo of the Day September 4, 2014.
http://lpod.wikispaces.com/September+4%2C+2014
Crater Ptolemaeus has a floor covered with many shallow bowl shaped craters, ghosts buried under lava. These ghost craters can be seen at low sun but the central peak is completely absent. To the north is crater Herschel (41 km.) with a shadowed floor.

Western Highland Peninsula Craters
Western Highland Peninsula Craters

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: Black Canson sketching paper, 10”x10”, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps.

Telescope: 13.1 inch f/ 6 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece 222x
Date: 01-28-2015 00:05-02:00 UT
Temperature: -4°C (25°F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi II
Transparency: 4/5
Co longitude: 0.7°
Lunation: 7.20 days
Illumination: 56.1 %

Frank McCabe

Comparison of Two Sketches of Atlas and Hercules

Atlas and Hercules
Atlas and Hercules

Yesterday evening I could sketch the wonderful pair of craters Atlas and Hercules with charcoal and chalk on black cardbox. This was the second sketch I did of these craters. I had a look into my archive and compared the current sketch with the one done on May last year.

Both sketches have been done with my 5” Celestron MAK. What we can see is the different lighting conditions based on moon age and libration. Furthermore, the seeing conditions last time have been much better than yesterday – I could not go up to 300x yesterday but had to leave it with the 7mm EP.

Clear skies!

Achim