Lunar crater Archimedes

[acr_astro]

Dear all,
yesterday evening, I set up my Celestron 5" MAK with Baader Maxbright Bino on the GoTo-Mount (Nexstar SLT) to have a look at our rocky companion in near space.
First I just enjoyed the binocular view of the lunar surface: The trio Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel looked great but for sketching, the terminator had already gone a bit too far. The shadows were already pretty short, especially those of the large, flat crater Ptolemaeus.
So I went north and was impressed by the wonderful view of eastrn Mare Imbrium. The famous triple Autolycus, Aristillus and Archimedes looked great and the mare ridges in the low lunar morning appeared very threedimensional. Further north the flat crater Cassini and the famous Vallis Alpes were prominent landmarks.
But as usual I wasn't happy with just observing, so "Hhhmm, what should I sketch now?"
The whole eastern arc of Mare Imbrium would have been a wonderul target but I didn't plan a longer session. I wanted to sketch just a single crater, so I picked the largest one in the area: Archimedes (which had been on my target list for some time already). Here's the result:

Telescope: Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT
Eyepieces & Accessories: 10mm "Super", Baader Maxbright Binoviewer, TS diagonal
Date & Time: March 16th, 2016 / 2030-2110 CET
Location: home terrace, Dusseldorf region, Germany
Technique: chalk-, whitecoal- and charcoal pens on black sketching paper

The flat, peakless interior reminded me of crater Plato but the volcanic material in Archimedes was a bit brighter.
The shadow of the eastern crater rim covered almost half of the crater floor. The western rim shone bright in the sun.
The hilly "peninsula" outside the southeastern crater rim and the northern parts of the Montes Archimedes looked pretty bright as well. The hilly area inbetween was showing a scattered mixture of brighter parts and dark shadowed areas.
North of the crater, the western ridge of Sinus Lunicus was visible as dark ark in the low lunar morning sun. The small peak a the south of it produces a long triangular shadow.

An hour later I had a peek on Jupiter with two moons and shadows on his clouds but the seeing wasn't good enough to see more than the GRF and Ganymede's shadow. Anyway, since Jupiter was not the main target of this evening, I wasn't too disappointed.

Clear skies!

Achim

[lunator]

Excellent Sketch

Superb detail:)

Cheers

Ian

 

[happy-kat]

Superb sketch and interesting report to go with it.

[mariosi]

Excellent presentation Achim !!!! 

 

Marios 

[Nick P]

Really like the 3D effect, something to aspire to!

[acr_astro]

Hi all,

thank you very much for the wonderful feedback!

Achim

[laudropb]

Terrific sketch and a very nice write up.