It's been a while since my last lunar sketch but I've been so busy and clouds were not much kind...
Finally, taking advantage of some clear nights, I managed to complete a couple of sketches of our satellite.
The first one I made represents Rupes Recta, a curious and very popular rille, well observable near the first quarter.
I loved the sharp shadow that the cliff made on the flat surface of a large, old crater. Just on its left you can see the Birth crater with another rille called Rima Birth. Sadly the seeing was not so great and I couldn't see that rille.
Next day the Moon was just a bit gibbous, and Copernicus crater popped out the lunar night. Copernicus is a relatively young crater and it offers a stunning view full of lights and shadows, with terraced borders and a very high central peak.
I took like 45 minutes to sketch all the details I could see. Again, seeing was not so good.
Thanks for reading, share this if you like my sketches!
On october 12th I made two more lunar sketches.
This time I chose the Marius crater, that was right between light and shadow. Many mountains and reliefs created really interesting shadows.
After that I sketched Aristarchus, a much famous crater, that also was near to the lunar terminator. Vallis Schroteri was barely visible, Herodotus was almost totally in shadow.
I'm quite satisfacted of these works, I hope you liked them!
On
14th september i made another lunar sketch using white pencil on black
paper, just to make experience with this new tecnique. I chose the
Hevelius crater, a very interesting formation that is visible just a
couple of days before the full moon.
The
grazing sunlight created many beautiful shadows, highlighting the
central peak and the narrow rilles that were crossing the crater floor.
Hope you enjoyed this sketch!
This is my first attempt at drawing on black paper with white pencil. I chose the majestic Sinus Iridum as first subject, my favourite lunar formation: as you could see from my older sketches, I drew it many times.
The peaks illuminated by the first sunlight of the lunar day are just beautiful, and the curvature of our satellite is well visible as the basalt floor gradually fades into darkness.
Hope you have enjoyed the sketch, if you liked it follow this blog for more, or visit the italian version for lots of sketches!
Here's my best moon sketches, classified by year and optical instrument.
This was one of my first moon sketches, made with my 50mm refractor.
Some works made in 2012 with my 114mm newton.
Moon terminator.
Alphonsus, Arzachel and Ptolemaeus.
Atlas and Hercules.
Teophylus, Cyrillus and Catharina.
Gassendi crater and something dark that passed in front of it, probably a bird, but that evening i tought it was a satellite.
Copernicus crater
Some months later my tecnique was slightly better, as I started experimenting with different types of pencils.
Hercules and Atlas.
Barrow crater and a beam of light crossing its dark floor.
Dawn over Hipparcus and Albetregnius.
Clavius and its many secondary craters.
Aristarchus and surroundings.
Cassini crater.
Copernicus crater: much better than the first sketch i made of it!
In 2014 I finally got my new telescope, and moon showed many more interesting details.
Gassendi crater again: there are so many lava channels!
Sinus Iridum is one of my favourite moon formations, it's simply breathtaking.
The magnificent Copernicus crater with a 8'' SC and a good seeing.
Recently I tried full disk sketches, drawing the whole moon as I saw it in the eyepiece: it's really hard to sketch all those details, but I love the results!
If you enjoyed those sketches keep following this blog!
The main topic of this blog is astronomy sketching. I started sketching many years ago, taking sketches of Moon, Planets and some deep-sky objects.
But why sketching when I could obtain better results with a camera?
I started sketching simply because I had no money to buy a decent camera for astrophotography, expecially deep-sky astrophotography. Later I really enjoyed this tecnique, and it started to become my main activity. I quickly understood the real power of astronomy sketching: sharing with other what I see with my eyes. When i sketch, I fix on sheet of paper my impressions and emotions. I think astronomy sketching is also useful for who just wants to know what can be seen with a certain telescope.
Hope you'll enjoy my observations!
