I had a fabulous run of clear skies and the chance to sketch. Three nights in a row.
Conditions this night were the best for a very long
time. 400X was showing some ‘boil’, but
still very acceptable.
In scanning the terminator for a sketch subject, I came
across Magnius. I had attempted to
sketch Maginus one time before – on that occasion clouds rolled in, killing off
the sketch session early.
Maginus is a very ancient feature. Its floor is flooded, with the tips of the
central peaks just showing. The peaks,
and the sheer size of Maginus are the only features still keeping the semblance
of the original crater. Otherwise, it
has been heavily altered by the successive impacts that are slowly obliterating
the remains of Maginus.
It is these newer impacts superimposed onto the massive
ancient crater that make this a very attractive sketching subject. The floor of Maginus is surprisingly clear of
particularly major impacts, with the major newer impacts doing their best to
obliterate the ramparts (wall structures) of the underlying crater. This grace of luck has left the remains of
the central peaks visible, and the remainder of the floor peppered with smaller
impacts.
Maginus makes for a fantastic telescopic target. Highly tortured, and littered with hundreds
of craters inside and surrounding Maginus, and the floor making for a good test
of conditions to be able to spy out the mass of tiny impacts. Curious to call these craterlets at ‘tiny’,
as the ‘tiny’ craters still range from 500m to 2km in diameter! Bloody big holes all the same!
Alex.
Object: Crater
Maginus and surrounds
Telescope: C8, 8” SCT
Gear: 5mm Hyperion,
400X
Date: 19th
December, 2015
Location: Sydney,
Australia
Media: Soft pastels,
charcoal and white ink on black paper.
No comments:
Post a Comment