acr_astro

Dear all,

yesterday evening I have chosen the lunar crater J. Herschel (named after British astronomer John Herschel from 19th century, the son of William Herschel) which exposed a pretty convexed floor in the rising sun. The crater has a diameter of about 150 km and lies at the northern "coast" of Mare Frigoris.
The sketch starts with Harpalus in the South, then you can see the 24 km crater Horrebow (named after a Danish astronomer from 17th century) just at the southern rim of J. Herschel. At the northern end of my sketch we have the 71 km crater Philolaus.
The dominating crater J. Herschel (too be precisely a walled plain) has a quite rough surface which is said to be caused by ejecta from the impact that formed the Mare Imbrium. This rough structure and its convexed shape resulted in a nice three-dimensional appearance.
Southeast of it, I sketched the secondary craters J. Herschel F and la Condamine B which are located in Mare Frigoris.

So here's the sketch:

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 127 SLT
Eyepiece: Explore Scientific 14mm/82° (due to the poor seeing, I couldn't go for the 6.7mm/82°)
Date & Time: January 6th, 2020 / 1845-1945 CET
Location: Backyard, 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

And finally here's a photo of my observation place:

Clear skies!

Achim

Hello Mike,

thanks for sharing this great sketch with us. The shadow on the crater floor indeed looks like a cutout of a man's head as mentioned as well by Martin!

Clear skies

Achim

Hello Mike,

excellent sketch and excellent observation. Thanks for heads up - I'll put this on my list!

Clear skies

Achim

Hi all,

thanks a lot for your great feedback!

Achim

Hi Mike,

thanks for showing these two sketches with their individual techniques!

And thanks Martin for the link.  I've been posting to that site quite some times in the past and indeed this Maurolycus sketch is mine. It was nice to revisit it five years after posting.

Unfortunately that site isn't maintained anymore as far as know.

Clear skies!

Achim

Dear all,

first of all Happy New Year to all of you!

Today we had a very sunny day over here, so I set up my Dobsonian telescope waiting for the moon. Since I could not decide for a single crater to sketch, I went for the whole visible moon and spent about an hour with that.

Telescope: 10" f/5 Martini Truss tube Dobsonian
Eyepiece: ES 82°/14mm
Date and Time: January 1st, 2020 / 1700-1800 CET
Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany
Technique: chalk and charcoal and whitecoal pens on black sketching paper
Size: appr. 20 cm diameter

Clear skies!
Achim

Dear all,

yesterday evening, the moon just a good day before full moon looked inviting through my window. So I set up my grab & go 70/420 ED and after some months without lunar sketching did a chalk and charcoal sketch of it. Here we go:

Telescope: TS 70/420 ED
Eyepiece: ES 14mm/82°
Date & Time: Nov 11th, 2019 / 1830-1900 CET
Location: Dusseldorf area, Germany
Technique: chalk and charcoal pens on black sketching paper
Size: diameter 8 inch

Clear and sunny skies!

Achim

Hello Mike,

what an interesting technique and a great result! Thanks for sharing with us here!

Clear skies!

Achim

Hi,

an excellent start of lunar sketching! Especially in our fast moving times, lunar observerving and sketches might be treated by some people as outdated. But for me it's a great time to come down and relax. I hope that you've already got addicted to it and we'll see more of your sketches here soon!

Clear skies!

Achim

Hi,

nice sketch of Gassendi!

Clear skies!

Achim

Hi Ruud,

thanks for sharing this wonderful sketch of these famous lunar observation targets! Well done!

Clear skies

Achim

Dear all,

thanks a lot for the great feedback and the likes!

Clear skies

Achim

Dear all,

now the summer heat seems to be gone. It's still sunny but not that hot anymore. Perfect weather for sketching for the H alpha sun:

Telescope: Lunt LS50THaB600PT
Eyepiece: Celestron X-Cel 10mm
Date & Time: August 30th, 2019 / 1230-1300 CEST
Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany
Technique: reddish Koh-i-Noor Toison d'Or pastels and pastel pens on yellowish Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper

Clear and sunny skies!

Achim

Hi Ruud,

that's a great sketch! Thanks for sharing with us.

Clear skies

Achim

Hi Mike,

great sketches of this excellent lunar sketching target!

Clear skies

Achim

Hi Ruud,

that's a great sketch. Well done!

Clear skies

Achim

Great sketches. Thanks for sharing with us here!

Achim

14 hours ago, Ruud said:

My plan is to avoid the Sun altogether in the next few days. 36-39 °C is too hot for me!

Hi Ruud,

I'll do this here as well. Sunblinds down and staying more or less inside. But now I have a sketch of the sun inside the house

And it's not hot. It's black - light switched off!

Clear skies!

Achim

Hi,

wonderful sketch. I like the way you're depicting the roughness of the surface (hills, craters, trenches, etc.).

Clear skies!

Achim

Dear all,

today once again, I did a charcoal sketch of our star bringing us 33°C before lunch time. The solar "north pole" is approximately at the prominence at the top of the sketch. The sketch is right-left flipped. Beside the orientation of the north pole, I figured out on the internet that the bright spot in the left area of the sketch is AR12745. The disc and parts of the prominences is done with natural charcoal. The filament and the dark areas of the prominences are done with the charcoal pen.

Telescope: Lunt LS 50 THa B600 PT
Eyepiece: Celestron X-cel 10mm
Date & Time: July 23rd, 2019 / 1130-1200 CEST
Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany
Technique: natural vine charcoal and Koh-i-Nor charcoal pen on white Hahnemühle Ingres mould-made pastel paper
Size: 24x31cm

Clear (and sunny) skies!

Achim

Hello Mike,

excellent sketch of craters I haven't observed yet! I should put this on my to-do-list. And thanks for the informative text - I enjoyed reading!

Clear skies

Achim

Hi,

great sketch and as well a fine text about your observation.

Clear skies

Achim

Hi,

this is a great sketch! Thanks for sharing with us.

Clear skies

Achim

Dear all,

as usual, I couldn't resist to create yet another charcoal sketch of the H alpha sun. It is relaxing for me to observe the proms and filaments and to try to catch them "as they are" on the paper. At first glance, the sun looks pretty similar - just at second glance and comparison with my other sketches, I have seen that it looks similar but always a bit different. The disc and the prominences are done with natural charcoal, just for the filaments, I needed a Koh-i-Noor artificial charcoal pen since it's darker.

Telescope: Lunt LS 50 THa B600 PT
Eyepiece: Celestron X-cel 10mm
Date & Time: July 1st, 2019 / 1015-1045 CEST
Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany
Technique: natural vine charcoal and Koh-i-Nor charcoal pen on white Hahnemühle Ingres mould-made pastel paper
Size: 24x31cm

Clear (and sunny) skies!

Achim

Dear all,

today morning I had a look at the GONG network images on the internet and set up my telescope to have a look at that awesome large prominence on the southeastern limb of our home star. First I concentrated on a sketch of just that wonderful prominence. After that, I created - as usual - a sketch of the full solar disc. I noticed that the prominence already had changed during my sketching time.

Telescope: Lunt LS 50 THa B600 PT
Eyepiece: TS HR Planetary 7mm
Date & Time: June 28th, 2019 / 1045-1145 CEST
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