[AZ-Observing] A Few Shallow Sky Observations



The moon is bright, so no effort to head for a dark site, just set up
the 90mm APO in the back yard in the middle of Tucson. I needed to make
an accurate measurement of the focal length of the scope anyway, make it 1075mm.

Seeing 7/10 but slowly deteriorating as the evening progressed.  Saturn
was beautiful if just not as crisp in detail as I would really like. 
The top edge almost exactly coincident with Cassini's Division, but not
quite clear, otherwise Cassini's was bolder than I have ever seen it,
the most dominant feature other than the rings themselves.

Wander over to the moon and wander the terminator, how can you ever get
tired of it?

I spent some time and attempted to draw John Herschel.  The sun was just
rising in this large crater, with the far wall appearing out of the
darkness as I watched.  Extremely rugged interior with innumerable
hummocks and small mountains scattered in no particular arrangement
across the floor, no definable central peak, at least in this light. 
Two large massifs or blocks of debris ten kilometers across, and about
as high on the north rim.  Two newer craters, crisp and unbroken, maybe
twenty kilometers in diameter each, overlapping slightly, on the south rim.

As for the drawing? if you don't focus on it too sharply, it basically
looks like the scene I saw.  Drawing craters is tough!  How do you
capture the enourmous contrast ratio from bright white to inky black? 
Much easier to draw your usual fuzzy and really have it look like the object.

Jupiter finally cleared the eucalytus tree, seeing degraded, not a
memorable sight, try again later this week?

Andrew

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Andrew Cooper
Tucson, AZ
mailto:acooper@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.whitethornhouse.com
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