A sketch of Crater Cichus on the southern edge of Mare Nubium, on a clear and hot night. The moon 9.7 days old. The sketch shows bright outlines of some of the craters, which is inaccurate. The interesting feature is the smaller crater on the southwestern rim of Cichus. Googling this feature produces interesting speculation by a 19th century astronomer that an apparent change in size of this smaller crater (Cichus C) might indicate recent volcanic activity. Quite wrong, as we now know, but the possibility had not been dismissed then. (See http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1859MNRAS..19..234W).
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After several days of haze, a relatively clear night. By 2330 the summer triangle up high in the east, my first sighting of the full asterism this season. Ophiuchus, to its west about a third of the way to Arcturus, showed Rasalhague and vivid orange Kelb al Rai to the naked eye, and the asterism Poniatowski's Bull through binoculars (http://www.astronomyblogs.com/member/northandeast/?xjMsgID=39039) through binoculars.
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A 12 day old moon. On the terminator, at the bottom of the sketch, are (left to right) the two prominent craters Phocylides and Schickard. Compressed in between them, their outlines far less distinct, are parts of Nasmyth and Wargentin. I also sketched Schickard in Oct 2006. These are circular formations, but appear elongated because of their proximity to the lunar limb. The small crater, above Phocylides in the sketch, is Noggerath.
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Tried to find Sunspot 1019 with the ETX-90 and solar filter with 32mm lens but the sun appeared blank on June 5 at 0900 gmt.
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The moon yesterday, June 2, at nearly 9 days offered much of interest near the terminator, including spectacular Copernicus. But guided by the recommendations of Virtual Moon Atlas I chose the obscure formation Fra Mauro, near Mare Cognitum. It is the uppermost circle in this sketch, with the lower left being Parry and right of that being Bonpland. Crater Tolansky is the small one below these three. It turned out on looking for more information about this region that its real interest lies in its having been the landing site for Apollo 14 (in the rougher territory just north of the walled plain of Fra Mauro, right at the top of the sketch). The whole area is a challenge to sketch, with Fra Mauro in particular having little in the way of a wall structure and presenting only a subtly different shade from the plain around it.
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