Gassendi

Location: Bray Co Wicklow Ireland 53.2000ºN, 6.1000º W
Equipment - Sky Watcher 200
25mm Super Wide Angle Kellner plus Meade 3X Telenegitive Barlow
B 2B 4B Reeves Pencils - Grey Conte Pastel.

June 7 2006

Moon - Waxing Gibbous 84% illuminated
Seeing 3- Temperature 17C- Transparency Poor - Humidity 70% - Wind Speed Calm <1.5m/s

22:00 UT Gassendi

What a great view of the Moon and Gassendi in particular. Made a drawing, wonderful detail available including some of that bubbly frothy rough look just like at Cassini earlier in the week. Had a go at capturing it.

Very enjoyable viewing a total pleasure:-)


Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org

Great sketches! Keep 'em coming!
Do you have any particular technique on how you go about your sketching?

Well the main thing I do is observe the target for about 20mins and try to take in as much detail as possibe to my eye. I try and make a mental note of the most interesting features and how the light falls and where the most striking dark ares are. As you know each day of a waxing moon reveals different craters and features and more or less of them depending on the fall of sunlight on the surface and the angle of sunlight on the surface of the moon.

I also try to take in where say one thing is in relation to everything else, like Gassendi and the terminator. Sketching a feature near the terminator is handy as your eye has something almost solid looking to bounce off and on to and judge where you are going.

Then I start to sketch and before I know where I am maybe another 35 or 40 mins has gone by and its a very nice experience.

If I am lucky and have a very steady image to view like on June 7th, I then get a better result just like photography a nice still atmosphere is king, and I guess taking it into the eye is a bit like photographic exposure.

I use a red light most of the time, but lately with it being so bright so late, I have just used available light.

At the moment I am fascinated by the various shades of grey in the lunar mare and am trying to draw that on paper and get the shading right. I am also expermenting with different media and papers.

Thanks for asking

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org

Deirdre, That's a fabulous sketch of this region of the Moon, I'll try and get a shot of it

Keith..

Deirdre, I found a shot here, a handheld shot from about 3 years ago



Keith..

WOW !! Snap great photograph, I can see the grey variations in the lunar mare and the ripples of lighter material inbetween, thats the areas I would love to get right .............in time.

Thanks for that

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org