Minus 15C. Poor seeing, but clear sky before dawn. This crude sketch is of Sinus Iridum, with its southern walls washed away by Mare Imbrium. It fails to convey the subtle shading of the smooth-looking floor of Iridum as it disappears into the twilight and darkness of the terminator. To the right of the mirror image is the outline of Montes Jura. The crater to the upper left is Maupertuis, with its eastern wall in sunshine. The rough shape of Bianchini lies on the northwestern edge of Iridum's rim. The three craters off to the right are Sharp, Sharp A and Sharp B. Up and up and to the right are Harpalus and Foucault, last sketched in greater detail in May when the moon was waxing. This time I used a 20mm Super Plossl with 2x Barlow. The sketch was drawn around 0615 local time on Jan 10.
In parts of southwest and northern China an annular solar eclipse will occur on Jan 15, 2010, in the afternoon. In Beijing it will be only partial, beginning at 3:32pm, when the sun will already be low in the sky at 14 degrees. Maximum eclipse in Beijing will be at 4:52 pm, when the sun is virtually on the horizon. It will set still partially eclipsed. None of this, even in the path of totality, should be viewed with the naked eye . At maximum in Beijing three quarters of the sun will be covered. Attached is NASA's map of the path through China.
A bitterly cold morning: -16C with deep snow still all around after Sunday's record fall. Mars and the third quarter moon were bright in the west, so decided to have a quick look before dawn. Seeing was appalling. Mars was a shimmering blob even in the 26mm lens, with darker features barely and momentarily visible if at all. Even the moon could take little maginfication. This sketch of Albategnius used a 26mm Super Plossly with 2x Barlow. Normally I would sketch with a 15mm. I last sketched Albategnius three years ago -- then in the first quarter phase. Crater Klein inside the main crater is on the bottom right. The small crater Vogel is to the bottom left (the lower of the first two small overlapping craters). Below those two little craters is Argelander. Halley and Hind are the two craters up and to left of this mirror image drawing. Rukl's atlas is a great help identifying these features -- much clearer than the digital Virtual Moon Atlas which I normally use.
After two or three beautifully clear, cold nights when I failed to get out with the telescope, I finally did so this morning to view sunspot 1035. It is massive and widely spread out on the sun's northern hemisphere, perhaps the largest I have seen this year. The sketch above was drawn using a 15mm lens with ETX-90 at around 9:20 am local time (0120 GMT) on Dec 18. Spaceweather.com describes it thus (worth visiting the site to see the animation):
Three days ago, the surface of the sun was calm and almost featureless. Then sunspot 1035 burst onto the scene .... The recently invisible spot is now nine times wider than Earth and crackling with C-class solar flares. A series of eruptions on Dec. 16th sent two and perhaps three coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the general direction of our planet.
A beautiful view just before dawn of the ISS rising up between a waning third quarter moon and Saturn before disappearing over rooftops to the SE.
