A brief trip to the moon

[The Warthog]

Managed to get an hour or so tonight, after dinner, but before putting away my tools from the day's work.

The first thing that grabbed my eye tonight was the elongated shape of Schiller, in the far south, next to the nicely rounded Bayer, this was enough to convince me that Schiller really is that odd shape; it's not just the position on the south limb distorting it. Schiller was the German Shakespeare, I wonder if he'd like having an oddball crater?

Just north of Schiller is Mee and Hainzel, which I sketched, here http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,1714.0.html a year or so ago. I tried to make out the Rimae Hippalus on the east coast of Mare Humorum, but the sun was already too high, and the features were washed out. The Rimae Mersenius on the west coast was nicely visible, though. The Rima leads to Gassendi, which looks really neat in this light, with its small rim crater on the north side. Gassendi has three peaks in its centre. At first, I thought these might be a crater, but they are just three peaks, interesting formation, all the same.

North of that, and east of Copernicus, a solitary small crater named Mosting stands in isolation n the floor of I'm not sure what. It appears to be a minor ray source. I'm guessing it's deeper than most of the craters around it, which would make it young, and account for the rays.

Sinus Iridium is in full sun, now. Behind it, north of crater Sharp is what appears to be a keyhole shaped depression, but will probably turn out to be a trick of shadow.

It was a warm night, tonight, and dry. I managed to indulge myself in a nice Bances corona, although I am going to have to get a book holder to free one of my hands. I was too tired to spend a lot of time with the scope, as it's been a full day since I got up this morning.

There's always tomorrow.

[Talitha]

Hi WH, your tour sounds familiar. I couldn't manage Rimae Hippalus either.. probably a combination of the smaller scope and a low altitude Moon.

Very accurate sketches you've got there! :thumbup: Btw, am I the 'gal from the Midwest' you referred to? I tried the sketching method of shading the entire background and erasing the white areas, but it was a disaster because I make too many mistakes and can't re-shade the area properly again. Someone told me that's the method they learned in an astronomy course though, so I guess it's do-able (not by me, though ).

[The Warthog]

Yes, you are she. I used the shading and erasing method to get the rays on Tycho in one of my sketches. I now own a paper stump, thanks to my daughters, but I'm not really sure what to do with it.

[Astroman]

If you're referring to a "blending stump" WH, I find it indispensable for smearing the graphite for sunspot penumbrae in my sketches. Another tool you both might try is an erasing mask, AKA "thin, metal thingy with different shaped holes in it".

[Talitha]

Be careful with the blending stump. It softens the sketch and blends shades of graphite together beautifully, but it also flattens the paper's 'tooth' and makes it slicker. If you have to erase a 'stumped' area and re-draw on it, the area won't accept the graphite as easily.. it's like trying to use a ballpoint pen on a grease-stained paper.

"...thin, metal thingy with different shaped holes in it".

You mean an eraser shield? I had a hard time locating one locally but finally found some in the 'graphic art' section of a craft store.

I agree, they're very useful (especially if you erase as much as I do ).

[The Warthog]

We used to use something like that for erasing print, back in the days when we keyboarded directly onto paper. That was on these interesting machines called typewriters. I may have a couple in the bottom of a box in my basement, somewhere.