March 24, 2023
A Tribute
Originally published April 30, 2013
image by Philip Morgan
Ever since Galileo, observers have put pen, pencil, crayon and brush to paper to capture the reality and the beauty of the Moon. In the last half century that practice has become progressively less needed to memorialize the details of a lunar landscape as film and electronic detectors have caught up with and exceeded the eyeball-brain-hand capability. But as Phil's excellent drawing illustrates the traditional way can both accurately capture detail and create an evocative feeling for the eyepiece view that images often lack. Phil is an especially talented lunar artist, following in the footsteps of Harold Hill in using tiny dots and pure blacks and whites to express the myrid tonal variations of the lunar surface. This LPOD serves as a tribute to Phil and all the other extraordinary sketchers who bring nothing but paper and pencil to the telescope and leave with a treasure of art and science. Thanks.
Chuck Wood
Yesterday's LPOD: Half a Crater
Tomorrow's LPOD: Lunar Pearls Without a String
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