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2024-05-15 Wednesday

I set out tonight with a plan to sketch the Davy crater. But once I got my scope focused on the moon, ready to navigate to Davy, I was struck with how interesting the craters in my FoV were and decided to sketch those instead.

09:32PM

Image

There were so many features packed into that small space, I almost got overwhelmed. The terminator was just west of the three targeted craters, blanketing everything that direction in a deeper darkness.

The Ptolemaeus crater is the north-most crater in the sketch. It must have been a shallower crater as I could see most of the floor of the crater.

Alphonsus is the middle crater. It must have been deep because the basin was covered in deep shadow. There was a central peak that was quite bright, with a subtle gradient back to shadow heading south.

Arzachel was also deep in shadow with a slightly larger peak bright and visible.

The shallow ridges and formations to the east were a bit more difficult to sketch. Even though they weren't the focus, I wanted to include them for context (and because they looked cool). In the future I think I need to be more careful with cutting shadows and highlights into shallower terrain, as they look more pronounced in the sketch than they did through the eyepiece.