Object name: Moon
Object type: Moon
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Date: 13th March 2011
Media: graphite pencil used on white paper. No digital tools used
Equipment: 10×50 Scopium WA Binocular
Additional info: The weather conditions were not the best, only the lighter start were visible. However the Moon was beautifully lighting on the sky so I have choosen her to draw. Some of the craters were very much visible and sharp.
—
dr. Hannák Judit
+36-30-542-68-80
hannak.judit@gmail.com
Object Name: Moon Craters Letronne and Gassendi
Object Type: Lunar craters
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Date: 1979-May-8
Media: graphite pencils on plain white paper; scanned to jpeg as original.
Equipment Used: 4.25 inch Newtonian; 192x
Observing Conditions: fair, calm
Aspects of Interests: The submerged wall of Letronne is very interesting, especially as a contrast to the steep walled crater Gassendi. Gassendi A and B are the small craters infringing on Gassendi’s North wall. Very dark in the middle suggests that they are deep and possibly young. Well defined details on all these objects except the walls of Mare Humorum to the South seen as very flat and without detail except at its Western edge where Gassendi lies across it. The area is mapped as Rima Mersenius. Illuminated walls are very bright. The maria are a very pale grey. I think Rima Herigonius is the bright light with distinct dark edge to the East of the group.
Thank you,
Jim Garasich
Object name: Lunar crater Tycho and rays
Object Type: Lunar crater, rays
Location: York, UK
Date: 18th March 2011
Time: 20.30-20.40 UT
Media: graphite pencil, white paper
Instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 152mm f8 Dobsonian, 25mm e.p.
As I took in the beauty of the full moon at perigee, I noticed a small black object zip across the face of the moon. I thought I’d probably seen a satellite, but, a minute or two later I saw another one, and then another one, and then another, and they were definitely birds. They were all travelling in the same direction: North. After waiting about half an hour and seeing about twenty of them, and trying to take in the jizz of the form, the best I could do was narrow them down to swallows and martins. Do they migrate at night? Well, if so, this was a unique way to see my first hirundines of the year.
Seeing was very wobbly, preventing me from using high powers on the scope, so I eased back into low power and sketched the crater Tycho and its rays, which you can also see with the naked eye as they splat half way across the face of the full moon. I like sketching fast; it forces me to find the key features first. Tycho itself is not huge as lunar craters go, but it’s visible because it’s young and its rays have not yet eroded away. It’s estimated to be about 100 million years old which means that some dinosaurs and mammals probably saw it hit; it must have been spectacular.
The crater is named after Tycho Brahe, one of my heros. His accurate measurements of the stars and planets led to the later discovery, by Kepler, that the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, which in turn is the basis of universal gravitation. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Tycho paved the way for our modern understanding of the universe. And he has a rather beautiful crater named after him too.
One of the things that I spotted for the first time was that there are fewer bright rays pointing west (top in the picture), suggesting that the impactor that formed Tycho came in from that direction.
Moon ,Posidonius (Mare serenitatis)
15 Aug 2010
Time: 22 – 22:25
Location: Zanjan (Bijar village) ,Iran
longitude 48
latitude 36.7
App Mag of sky :about 6
Optic :80 mm Apo + EQ6 (tripod)
eyepiece: 12.5 mm + moon filter
white paper , pencil , blending stump
Best regards
Clear sky
Shiva Neissan
Craters Kepler and Encke At nearly 11 days into the current lunation sunrise has just finished for the rim of crater Kepler. Even during this early morning view, some of the brightest rays of this crater were seen radiating eastward from the ramparts on that side. Kepler is a 31 kilometer diameter complex crater with a low central peak and a flat debris covered floor from inner wall slumping. As I saw it during the time of this sketch, the floor was in complete darkness and had the perception of great depth. Crater Kepler lies between the Oceanus Procellarum and the Mare Insularum both of which consist of dark surface lavas.
The Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli named Crater Kepler about 28 years after the death of Johannes Kepler. He also named Crater Tycho after Tycho Brahe, the man with the accurate data measurements that helped make Kepler famous for his three laws of planetary motion.
I was hoping to include Rima Milichius in this sketch but the seeing was so poor I never saw a hint of it even at its widest part that would have been located in the lower left corner of the sketch. The other crater captured in this sketch is 1 kilometer smaller in diameter and 3 times older than Kepler. This is crater Encke named after 19th century German astronomer Johann Franz Encke. The rubble-covered floor of this crater was well illuminated because of its greater distance from the terminator and much shallower depth.
Sketching and Equipment:
For this sketch, I used black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9” x 12”, white and
black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps.
Telesccope: 13.1 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece (222x) riding on an equatorial platform
Date: 2-14-2011, 00:30-02:00 UT
Temperature: 4° C (40° F)
Partly cloudy, very windy
Seeing: Very poor – Antoniadi IV-V
Colongitude 39.8 °
Lunation 10.9 days
Illumination 96.7 %
Frank McCabe
Object Name (Valles Inghirami, Baade, Bouvard)
* Object Type (Lunar Valles)
* Location (York, UK)
* Date (18th January 2011)
* Media (graphite pencil, white paper)
Instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 152mm f8 Dobsonian, 10mm e.p, x2 Barlow.
What’s an astronomical sketcher to do at full moon? These are actually good times to catch rare details on the lunar limb, and here I have caught three of the valleys on the south-western limb of the moon close to the crater Inghirami, which in turn is just south-west of Schickard. These valleys are radial to the Orientale basin and created by the same impact. Vallis Inghirami is the easiest to spot by virtue of its proximity to the crater of the same name, whilst Bouvard is also striking by virtue of its greater elevation and length. Baade is harder to pick out because it’s behind Vallis Inghirami and mostly hidden behind its own rim. This dramatic landscape mirrors the cataclysmic event that must have created it about 3.5 billion years ago.
Object Name: Aristarchus and Vallis Schroteri
Object Type: Lunar Crater
Location: Bristol, UK
Date: 18th Dec 2010
Media (graphite pencil sketch at the scope and then digitized using graphics tablet and Photoshop)
I usually sketch in some detail at the scope (mainly HB and 2B). I then scanned the result into Photoshop and use a Bamboo Pen graphics tablet to remaster the sketch. The final sketch was then “blurred” a touch to simulate the actual view which is never as sharp as I would like to see!)
Observational date: I use a Nexstar 8SE teamed with a Hyperion 8-24 mm zoom. Most of the sketch was at the 16mm stop with occassional use of Barlow and was drawn in moderate seeing conditions. The moon was 13 days old.
I could see the main circular formation with the hint of rays in SE. The crater had high walls although I could not see the terraces. The flat floor had a smallish central mountain. Herodotus was prominent to the W. Vallis Schroteri could be seen N of Herodotus by a craterlet called ‘the Head of Cobra’. The valley ran towards N then W.
Chris Lee
Mare Crisium is that interesting isolated sea on the northeastern side of the visible lunar surface. Only about half of it was visible during this sketching session.
The Nectarian Period event that formed this feature occurred more than 3.8 billion years ago. The mare portion of the basin is about 500 kilometers across. In the grazing sunlight across the floor, wrinkled ridges were visible in the north to south direction. Also on the western floor craters Picard (24 km.), Peirce (19 km.) and Swift (11km.) stood out in the low light. I could clearly see the lighter colored bench lava that partly buried craters here such as Yerkes (37 km.). Tall flat top mountains (massifs) beyond the shore stand at 2-5 kilometers above the sea. Also beyond the sea to the West crater Proclus (28 km.) with its remarkable bright rays was reflecting some sunlight.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: 400 series black Strathmore Artagain paper 9″x 12″, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils , and Conte’crayons, a blending stump, plastic eraser. Brightness was decreased -2 and contrast increased +1 using the scanner for this sketch
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian with 6mm (241x)
Date: 12-23-2010 10:00 – 11:30 UT
Temperature: -8°C (18°F)
Weather: clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 120°
Lunation: 17.7 days
Illumination: 94.5%
Oak Forest, Illinois
Frank McCabe
Clear skies and a prominent day-11 moon on the evening of 16th December had me out really enjoying sketching; it wasn’t too cold (to begin with), the skies were clear, the target was high and I had plenty of time…..all a rare occurrence.
I sketched one of the most architecturally pleasing parts of the moon; the Sinus Iridum, which is a large crater/small basin with a partially flooded rim.
Of the two promontories, the one on the right (Promontorium Heraclides) is also known as the moon maiden, because at certain times it resembles the profile of a lady, with her long hair falling away off her shoulders. Also visible are the wrinkle ridges which might be traces of the buried rim, and craters Bianchini, Maupertuis, La Condamine and Bouguer.
Awaking on 17th at 4am with busy thoughts, I decided that viewing Saturn would be better than attempting to get back to sleep. And so it was.
I was surprised by quite a lot. The rings had opened up quite a bit since I saw them last spring. Not being close to opposition, the planet was quite small and I couldn’t see much detail on the planet itself. Only one moon was obvious; Titan predictably. With effort, another moon could be viewed roughly forming a right-angled triangle between Titan and the planet; it’s the faint spot at middle-left of the picture. This turned out to be Iapetus, which was pleasing because I haven’t seen that very often. It was new for me to see a moon so out of plane with the planet and the rings as last year they were mostly in line. It was good to see such old friends again.
* Object Name – Sinus Iridium, Mare Imbrium; Saturn, Titan, Iapetus.
* Object Type – Lunar Crater, Mare; Planet, Moons.
* Location – York, UK
* Date 16th December 2010, 17th December 2010
* Media – Graphite pencil on white paper. Observing instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 152mm f8 Dobsonian, 10mm e.p., x2 Barlow.
Object Name : Langrenus and others
Location : Bures-sur-Yvette, France
Date : 22/10/2010
Media : white pencil, white pastel, black paper
A very nice night, seeing very good but very cold temperature (-5° > C). 3 hours of sketching, the spots shadow was sketche first > because that’s change, in 3 hours… with a maksutov-cassegrain > 127mm x300, at the end meniscus was frost
