acr_astro

Hi Marios, that's a great sketch! It resembles,a photo. Well done! Achim

Dear all, yesterday evening I went out to the terrace to sketch a lunar feature that I had already for quite some time on my to-do-list: The Serpentine Ridge. This feature consists of the officially named Dorsa Smirnov and Dorsa Lister - named after the Russian scientist Sergej S. Smirnov and the British zoologist Martin Lister. It is located in the eastern Mare Serenitatis and is an inner ring segment of that basin. It's nicely visible at low solar angle. Telescope: Celestron NexStar 127 SLT Eyepiece: Explore Scientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: March 8th, 2022 / 1945-2045 CET Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf Region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor chalk, extra charcoal and whitecoal pens and pieces on Seawhite of Brighton black sketching paper Size: appr. 20x30cm On the right side of the sketch we have the floor-fractured crater Posidonius which would have been worth a sketch of its own. In the south you can see Plinius and Dawes. east of Dawes is Mons Argaeus. And between that mountain and Posidonius I sketched Dorsa Aldrovandi which was visible just as a darker stripe. And finally, the bright rocky area west of Plinius that is Promontorium Archerusia. Clear skies Achim

Dear all, tonight we had much better conditions than yesterday. I haven't drawn the lunar disc for quite some time - so I went out for it today again. Here's the result of the 11d old moon: Telescope: TS ED 70/420 refractor Eyepiece: ExploreScientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: February 12th, 2022 / 2250-2340 CET Location: home, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor chalk, extra charcoal and whitecoal pens and pieces on black Hahnemühle Ingres mould-made pastel paper Size: 24x31cm Clear skies! Achim

Dear all, yesterday, the weather forecast promised a clear evening with just a few small cumuli, so I prepared everything for a lunar sketch: Putting the Dobsonian to the terrace, collecting the sketching material and dressing up for -2°C. In the end, the sketching session was not as relaxing as expected. There was some poor seeing due to the heatings from the houses here in the city, then neighbours opened the window and that lead to an outage of visibility for five minutes. When I then had done half of the sketch, the clouds became more and the moon was gone. So I had to finish the sketch in the north of Promontorium Laplace from memory afterwards. Here's the result: Telescope: Martini 10" f/5 truss-tube Dobsonian Eyepiece: ExploreScientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: February 11th, 2021 / 2015-2115 CET Location: home, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor chalk, extra charcoal and whitecoal pens and pieces on black Hahnemühle Ingres mould-made pastel paper Size: 24x31cm Clear skies! Achim

Hello Mike, I missed this sketch a week ago. That's excellent! I like especially the small bright stripes of the bright Diophantus rim in the sunlight! Clear skies Achim

Dear all, thanks a lot for the great feedback and all the likes! It's a pleasure to post my sketches here Clear skies Achim

Dear all, finally weather conditions, moon phase and a free evening fit together. So I could go for a lunar sketch again. This time, I selected the famous trio Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel. Frankly, I always struggle a bit with the outer rims fo the craters and the mostly rocky areas around the craters. And it's always a bit tricky to catch the exact positions of the smaller craters. I hope I managed to position the unnamed catena between Ptolemaeus and Müller well. It's a pity that so many wonderful lunar features still lack official names. Telescope: Celestron NexStar 127 SLT Eyepiece: Explore Scientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: January 10th, 2022 / 1745-1900 CET Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf Region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor chalk, extra charcoal and whitecoal pens and pieces on Seawhite of Brighton black sketching paper Size: appr. 20x30cm Clear skies! Achim

Dear all, after a long working day in the office I was first too tired to go out for lunar observation and sketching. But when sitting on the sofa and reading for a while, I couldn't resist and set up my small ED on the terrace.The 6.5 day old moon was already just 10° above the horizon and just a bit above the houses in the neighbourhood. At the terminator the three craters Aristoteles, Eudoxus and Alexander drew my attention. So I picked up my sketching stuff. This time I tried something new and just took a single, white pastel pen. Here's the result: Telescope: TS 70/420 ED Eyepiece: Explore Scientific 6.7mm/82° Mount: Berlebach Castor II Alt-Az on Berlebach Report 222 tripod Date & Time: November 10th, 2021 / 2015-2030 CET Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: white pastel pen on black sketching cardbox size: appr. 8cm x 12cm Clear skies! Achim

Hi all, after a long absence of lunar sketching - and posting here - I came back to the moon yesterday evening. This time I didn't do a crater sketch but decided to go for Montes Recti. This is the result: Telescope: Martini 10" f/5 truss-tube Dobsonian Eyepiece: Explore Scientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: October 15th, 2021 / 2030-2115 CEST Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor charcoal, whitecoal and chalk blocks and pens on black sketching paper Size: 12x8cm Clear skies! Achim

Dear all, luckily we have excellent weather here today and I could use my lunch break for observing and sketching the solar exclipse. When sketching, I tried to "mentally" mirror the view in the EP back to non-mirrored orientation. I hope this went well. The progress of the eclipse shown in the sketch is from 1235 CEST. Here we go: Telescope: Lunt LS 50 THa B600 PT Eyepiece: Celestron X-cel 10mm Date & Time: June 10th, 2021 / 1215-1245 CEST Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: reddish Koh-i-noor pastels, pastel pens and charcoal pen on black Hahnemühle Ingres mould-made pastel paper Size: 24x31cm Clear skies! Achim

Dear all, yesterday evening I didn't have good conditions for observing: We had heavy showers and it took until 8 p.m. that I could put my 5" MAK outside for cooling down. There was just a short break in the clouds and the sky wasn't dark yet. Between 9.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. I could revisit the Copernican crater Eudoxus again. I sketched it two years ago together with its peer Aristoteles. This time I concentrated just on Eudoxus (43 miles diameter). Here's the result: Telescope: Celestron NexStar 127 SLT Eyepiece: ExploreScientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: May 18th, 2021 / 2130-2200 CEST Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor charcoal, whitecoal and chalk pencils on Hahnemühle 'black book' sketching paper Size: 15x21cm Clear skies! Achim

Hi Mike, thanks for your feedback. I totally agree with you: The charcoal really improves the three-dimensional appearance of the sketch. So this one lacks a bit of it. Clear skies! Achim

Dear all, yesterday evening the sky got clear after a heavy shower so I could do a quick and tiny lunar sketch. This time a bright linear structure at the edge of the terminator has drawn my attention. When looking into my lunar atlases and books afterwards, it turned out that this Dorsum parallel to Rima Beaumont seems to be unnamed. However it was wonderfully visible at the terminator when the rising sun just illuminated the highest parts of it whereas the shallow floors east and west of it still was in the dark. The Dorsum is running from south to north between Beaumont and Mädler east of the rims of Theophilus and Cyrillus F. Telescope: TS 70/420 ED Eyepiece: ExploreScientific 6.7mm/82° with ExploreScientific 2x focal extender ate & Time: May 16th, 2021 / 2200-2230 CEST Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor chalk pen and whitecoal pen on black sketching paper Size: 8 x 12 cm This time I tried to catch the subtile darkness at the terminator without using charcoal pens Clear skies! Achim

Hi, great sketches! The Herschel wedge pays off. Clear skies Achim

Hi, these are excellent pencil and charcoal sketches! I like especially your Mare Humorum sketch.

Dear all, yesterday evening I had to wait some hours until the cloud cover vanished and I could start observing the moon. When "travelling" along the terminator a strange "nested" crater drew my attention. When looking up in my lunar atlas, I figured out its name is Damoiseau. SInce I used the focal extender together with the 6.7 eyepiece, it ended up in a continous sequence of push - sketch - push - sketch - (...) to keep the crater in the eyepiece. It's nice to observe the details of smaller craters with diameter of just 20 miles but it gets a bit hectic for sketching. However, here's the result: Telescope: Martini 10" f/5 truss-tube Dobsonian Eyepiece: Explore Scientific 6.7mm/82° with Explore Scientific 2x focal extender (resulting in ~370x) Date & Time: April 24th, 2021 / 2315-0015 CET Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor charcoal, whitecoal and chalk pencils on Hahnemühle 'black book' sketching paper Size: 15x21cm The imbrian crater Damoiseau is located inside the larger crater Damoiseau M and southwest of the flooded crater Damoiseau H at the shore of Oceanus Procellarum. Clear skies! Achim

Dear all, tonight I once again did a chalk sketch of the moon in dusk on dark blue mould-made pastel paper. It's a bit tricky to get the proper white balance and color temperature when taking the digital image of the sketch with the smart phone. I think I have somehow met the blue tone of the paper on the picture: Telescope: TS 70/420 ED Eyepiece: ExploreScientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: April 20th, 2021 / 2015-2100 CEST Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor chalk pen and kneadable eraser on dark blue Hahnemühle mould-made pastel paper Size: 24 x 31 cm The large crater at the southern part of the terminator is Clavius. In the north in Mare Imbrium we have Timocharis at the terminator. Clear and skies! Achim

Dear all, this sunny morning, I spent half an hour before doing an 11km hike with my family to draw the sun with pastels. Actually both things have been wonderful amusements in these days when lots of other nice things don't work. So here's the sketch: Telescope: Lunt LS50THaB600PT Eyepiece: Celestron X-Cel 10mm Date & Time: April 17th, 2021 / 1000-1030 CEST Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: reddish Koh-i-Noor Toison d'Or pastels and pastel pens on black Hahnemühle mould-made pastel paper Size: 24 x 31 cm Clear skies and stay healthy! Achim

Hi Mike, thanks! The Golden Handle is formed by the rim of Montes Jura which are the border of Sinus Iridum. They are called the Golden Handle when just the summits are in bright morning sun and the rest and Sinus Iridum are still in darkness. Clear skies Achim

Hi, that's fine. I expected that you used some grey paper. The exact brand isn't important. A good idea with the white ink parts. That adds a realistic view of the bright crater rims. Clear skies Achim

Dear all, tonight the waxing gibbous moon stood very high in the sky. I was looking for the Golden Handle but it was just visible in the beginning of its appearance. Just the first summits were visible. In addition I pretty much enjoyed the ridges on the floor of Sinus Iridum. Here you are: Telescope: Martini 10" f/5 truss-tube Dobsonian Eyepiece: ExploreScientific 6.7mm/82° Date & Time: March 23rd, 2021 / 2030-2130 CET Location: home, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: Koh-i-Noor chalk, extra charcoal and whitecoal pens and pieces on black Hahnemühle Ingres mould-made pastel paper Size: 24x24cm Clear skies! Achim

Hi, that's an excellent sketch of Clavius - very artistic technique! What type of paper did you use? Thanks for sharing with us! Clear skies! Achim

Hi, these are great sketches! Thanks for sharing your view of this famous deep sky target with us! Clear skies Achim

Dear all, I'm just coming in from the terrace where I did a charcoal sketch of the H alpha solar disc. We can see the active regions AR12806 (in the bottom) and AR12807 (a bit lower than the center). The sketch is left/right mirrored. Telescope: Lunt LS 50 THa B600 PT Eyepiece: Celestron X-cel 10mm Date & Time: March 6th, 2021 / 1430-1500 CET Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany Technique: natural vine charcoal on white Hahnemühle Ingres mould-made pastel paper Size: 24x31cm  Clear and sunny skies! Achim

Hi all, thanks for the great feedback and all the likes! Clear skies Achim