January 2015 - Roel

January 2015 Winner - Sketching's Finalist - Roel
Drawing of crater Pythagoras:
On the evening of January 3 the skies finally cleared and my 3″ Polarex Unitron was quickly set up in the backyard. Crater Pythagoras on the northeastern limb of the Moon looked particularly nice – like a deep rocky bowl in the lunar surface. Seeing conditions were fair, so I pumped up the magnification to a crazy (for a 3″) 200x. It still gave a pleasant and sharp view and sketching was quite comfortable with the crater looking big in the eyepiece.
Pythagoras is a 130km wide impact crater with staggering 5km high terraced walls. The central peaks (I could see two of them) are also pretty huge: 3,5km high! Imagine the panoramic view from the top op one of those mountains….
Sketch made with a pastel pencil on black paper, through a 3″ Polarex Unitron at 200x (Baader 6mm BGO). The image is mirror reversed.