Lunar crater Clavius - September 3, 2014

Crater Clavius Out and Over the Terminator

Lunar crater Clavius - September 3, 2014
Lunar crater Clavius – September 3, 2014

Among the large craters of the lunar southern highlands, a nearly 4 billion year old crater stood out over the terminator on this evening just after local sunset here in the central USA. This crater is the 230 km. diameter impactor known by the name Clavius. Clavius is blanketed with a sizable number of craters and numerous craterlets . The north-northeastern rim of Clavius has a large crater resting upon it and most of its rim is just catching the light of sunrise. This 52 km. diameter crater is Porter. Much of the central floor of crater Clavius remains in darkness except for Clavius D (21 km.) and to its right in the sketch Clavius C (13 km.). Note that crater D is casting a nice shadow across the high central floor which is just beginning to light up in the lunar morning sun.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: Black Canson sketching paper, 8”x10”, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps.
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 09-03-2014 01:05-02:00 UT
Temperature: 26°C (79°F)
Partly cloudy, breezy
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 14.9°
Lunation: 8.47 days
Illumination: 56.7 %

Frank McCabe

4 thoughts on “Crater Clavius Out and Over the Terminator”

  1. Frank, brave man to undertake this area of the Moon! Lovely rendition. Magic thing to see shadows cast this way as Calvius D.

    Alex.

  2. Michel, Alex and Jean-Marc,

    Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to your next posts here.

    Frank 🙂

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