Moon sketch

Well, I'm a bit late for last month's sketching contest, but I finally got around to doing my very first observational moon sketch.

Of course, I somehow managed to pick a full moon for this. (Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, eh?) Anyway, given that the lack of shadows didn't seem to favor a telescope, I decided to give the naked-eye view a go.

HB pencil on Daler Rowney A3 sketch pad ( "smooth cartridge" ).



Cheers,
-- Jeff.

That's pretty neat Jeff.

Michael.

BTW, that paper, is that your latest choice for astronomy work?

Michael --

I got it just for the moon. I use A5 for deep sky and 9" x 12" (black) for solar.

Cheers,
-- Jeff.

Doing naked eye moon sketches is very useful for getting to know the shapes of the maria, and their position relative to each other. Several small sketches, done in one day, or night shows the rock and roll of the moon and the perceived change in position of mare like Crisium close to the limb. Several of the larger craters can be quite visible and it is also a good exercise in noting the general shapes of the highlands, which if you get the maria right, are then already pronounced for you. The slight extra bright edge which always surrounds the entire limb of the moon is also something to depict and that gets more obvious as the darkness creeps in.

Doing small naked eye sketches of the moon can teach you a lot, each time you have a go your detail will improve.

Good stuff Jeff

Deirdre Kelleghan
Outreach Coordinator IFAS
www.deirdrekelleghan.com
twitter.com/skysketcher

Nice one Jeff.
It's good to see people posting up
sketches like this..
It makes for an interesting section to the site,

I really must get the 'lead' out and give this a go..
(sorry for the awfull pun!)

Hey Jeff,
I was just thinking,
how do you think that scene would look
if you drew on black paper with white pencil / conte?

Dee --

Excellent tips. I might try my binoculars next as I had a hard time making out the shapes on the moon naked-eye. The trees were actually easier (and I'm no artist).

Cheers,
-- Jeff.