Surprise libration!

[Roel]

Last night I made a sketch of Lunar crater Gauss and its surroundings. While archiving the sketch this morning I realised I already sketched this part of the Moon almost a year ago, so I got the idea of a side by side comparison to show the effect of lunation. To my surprise I found out these sketches were made at the exact same lunation: 15.5 days. The difference in lighting therefore had to be caused mainly by the Moon's libration; the slow wobbling of the Moon in its orbit. A pleasant suprise to find out I sketched this phenomenon totally unintentionally!

Both sketches were made using a 3" Polarex Unitron refractor at 171x, with a white pastel pencil on black paper. Orientation and size were matched using Photoshop.

[lunator]

Roel

Very nice sketch

Always nice when you can compare images.

Cheers

Ian

[Pete Presland]

lovely sketches and an excellent comparison.

[Dannae]

That must have been an excellent discovery - your sketches are amazing

Regards

Dannae

[Siriusmeg]

What an interesting study (even if accidental   ).  Your sketches show amazing detail, thanks for sharing.

[mariosi]

Beautiful drawing! You have captured the details very nicely.

Thank you for sharing and clear skies always

Marios

[stevend]

Amazing and with such detail. I am in awe of your sketching skills.

[goodricke1]

Superb sketches.

[Astro Imp]

Wonderful work Roel that provides a practical lesson as well.

[Scott]

That's a fantastic comparison however, I find myself distracted by your amazing sketching skills. who needs a camera hey

[todd8137]

Nice drawings ,am itching to do some of the craters now tne summer as gone

Pat

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice sketches, and excellent demonstration of libration