May 1, 2014
Memorializing Observations
montage by Leo Aerts, Belgium
Leo writes: Imaging the Moon in the Seventies. No webcam, CCD, DSLR camera nor any effective film existed to obtain ‘high resolution’ pictures. The only way to ‘fix’ your Moon observations was memorizing them on paper. The solution was your head, combined with your pencil.
Leo's examples of his lunar drawings from the 70s present a checkerboard of places, some easily identified, others not much. The drawings are excellent and show more detail than was normally captured on film - just page thru old Sky and Telescope magazines to see the generally low quality of lunar photographs then. But there were some high achievers even then, especially among French amateurs. Jean Dragesco's 1995 book represents the high point of high resolution film photography. I hope that someday an amateur looks back at LPOD of 2014 and smiles, thinking that those pix weren't too bad for their day, but nothing like what we get with modern detectors, telescopes and software, or better yet what we see out the window during vacations to the Moon.
Chuck Wood
Yesterday's LPOD: A Month of Luck
Tomorrow's LPOD: Quiz Time
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