The six-day waxing gibbous moon is visible for many hours in the evening – perfect for lunar observing and sketching. The time of my sketch was closer to the sixth day than the five day old moon. I had a hard time identifying craters using either lunar days! Note how much [...]]]>

Six-day old waxing moon

The six-day waxing gibbous moon is visible for many hours in the evening – perfect for lunar observing and sketching. The time of my sketch was closer to the sixth day than the five day old moon. I had a hard time identifying craters using either lunar days! Note how much fainter Mare Crisium is now than on the three-day moon. Many of the features barely visible three lunar days earlier in earthshine are now lit.

On the terminator, beginning on the right and moving to the left, I see Aristoteles and Eudoxus and sketched them as dark splotches. Montes Caucasus, the Caucasus Mountains, show as a half-circle of sunlit peaks on the terminator, cradling the Sea of Serenity. Hmmm, should I use the Latin names or the English names? A bit of both, so the more familiar names are understandable, I think. Closer to the center of the terminator, I can see Plinius, a bright white crater within the Sea of Tranquility. The Apollo 11 landing site, though not visible is just on the left edge of the Sea of Tranquility, the left-most of the two large seas touching the terminator. The large sea closer to the lower edge is Mare Fecundidatis, the Sea of Fertility.

Moving back up to the lunar terminator are a pair of lit craters. They are Hipparchus and the small crater Horrocks (connected at right) and Albategnius. These are the two craters where the sunrise is just touching the crater walls a little more than halfway from the middle of the terminator.

Moving along the terminator, the final 2 features I can identify (at 19x) are Gemma Frisius and Maurolycus, the last two craters on the sunlit side of the terminator on the left. I suspect the sunlit crater walls just on the unlit side of the terminator belong to the craters Walter and Purbach (to the right).

Hitchhikers’s Guide to the moon. Select Feb. 1 or 2, 2009 to match my sketches.

My photo of the five-six day moon

This year, my observing project is to recreate as many of Galileo’s original telescopic observations as I can. I’ll be using my smallest telescope, a 70mm refractor, and making my sketches using a 25mm eyepiece for a magnification of 19x. Each of my lunar sketch pages will each show three [...]]]>

three-day old waxing moon

This year, my observing project is to recreate as many of Galileo’s original telescopic observations as I can. I’ll be using my smallest telescope, a 70mm refractor, and making my sketches using a 25mm eyepiece for a magnification of 19x. Each of my lunar sketch pages will each show three sketches on the page. My first sketch is an “outline” of major features. The second sketch shows more detail, and the third is the final sketch. When I’ve matched all of Galileo’s lunar sketches, I’ll make a comparison montage.

The three-day waxing gibbous moon is high enough above the western horizon and far enough away from the setting sun to be easily visible. Earthshine illuminates the unlit features, and sun shines on the narrow crescent. Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crisis) is the oval dark geological feature visible on the lower right edge of the three-day-old crescent moon.

The crater Picard can be seen within the smooth surface of Mare Crisium. Along the terminator are some distinctive craters and other features, visible even at 19x. Following the terminator from right to left in my sketch, are dark Mare Fecunditatis and the large oval craters Langrenus, Vendelinus, and Petavius, all partially lit by the sunrise on their walls.

Petavius, the third of the 4 evenly spaced, and similarly sized craters shows some of the prominent crater floor structure of central peak and rimae – which I sketched as a dark angluar line. Funerius, fourth and last of the big craters on the terminator tonight, are near the two smaller craters, Snellius and Stevenius. In my sketch, I just show the crater floors flooded with shadow.

Earthshine reveals Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis, Nubium and Humorum. And I was able to see the crater Aristarchus (the white feature top middle of the earthshine) and Plinius and Linne — the small white features in the lower middle of earthshine.

Use the link below to Hitchhikers Guide to the Moon to identify other features.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Moon

Sketch of Petavius

Sketch of Langrenus, Vandelinus, Petavius, and Furnerius a few days after full moon February 3, 2007, a 16 day-old waning moon.

My photo of the 3-day moon