Deirdre Kelleghan  skysketcher@gmail.com
Follow me here
  • Home
  • Outreach
  • Video
  • TV and Audio interviews
  • Astronomical Sketches and Nature Prints
    • Honors and Awards
    • Comet Sketches
    • Lunar drawing tutorial
    • Lunar Sketches >
      • Copernicus
      • Reiner , Reiner Gamma
    • Solar Sketches >
      • Active Regions in h alpha - Filaments and filaproms - White Light Sketches >
        • Full Solar Disc
    • Messier Object Sketches
    • Planetary Sketches
  • This is me
  • Blog
  • Workshops and Talks
    • Action Comet 67 /P CG Workshop >
      • Interesting Links
  • Resources and More

GRAIL Moon Mission - Trip to Co Clare to go inside the planet - What's Up for January 2012

1/9/2012

 
Picture
GRAIL A & B in orbit around the Moon
_ New Years Eve drawing

Ye know drawing is sometimes like an itch I have to scratch. When an idea takes even a fingertip hold on my mind it will sit there in silence forever or until I deal with it. As a result I have a backlog which I am sure would take several years to achieve. Most days new notions for visual experiments snap crackle and pop in my head.  

Lunar drawing, for the most part it is for my learning pleasure and enjoyment. It would be very rare for me to produce a drawing that was not directly from my telescope observations.  On a New Year break (minus telescope) I was inspired to sketch in celebration of the NASA Grail’s mission to the Moon. Some time ago I was sent a NASA facts sheet about   GRAIL – Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission. I used the little moon image on the back of the sheet to inform my ink drawing.  “Grail is a Discovery Class mission that will unlock the mysteries of the Moon. By globally mapping the lunar gravitational field to unprecedented accuracy and resolution, the mission will peer deep inside the Moon to reveal its internal structure and thermal history. “

My drawing materials were new to me and oh boy they are wonderful, Inktense blocks by Derwent. Little sticks of water-soluble ink, can be used with a little water or just as sticks of colour or grated or any combination of these. There was no white ink stick, OK now I could have left the paper do the white for me but I like using white over darker colours.  I had brought a white gel pen with me; it was past its best, so I cut into the tube to make use of the ink that remained for my ejecta rays. For the Grail’s I used two tiny pieces of foil from the neck of a Champagne bottle. Cheers Grails how appropriate I giggled as added the shiny orbitors to the blackness of space around my Moon drawing.  GRAIL's A & B went into lunar orbit on New Years Eve
and New Years Day . They will bring us lunar secrets held for eons.

Eyes On the Solar Syestem follow it here

MoonKam is the public outreach part of the mission
Eyes On the Solar System  you can follwo this and other missions here

January 3rd / 4th I made efforts to observe and sketch the Quadrantid meteor shower; however cloudy conditions put an end to that idea. The irony was that my location was much darker than home and I had a clear view to the north with no obstructions, such are the trials of Irish observing.

My husband and I had a wonderful wild winter week in Lisdoonvarna .We went walking in  the rugged rocky landscape of north Clare.  It is always in my opinion very important to be aware of our planets place in space as we observe and explore outwards.  It’s Important also to take time to wallow in the beauty of this Earth.  Doolin Cave an extraordinary experience, 80 feet underground in pitch black , like being in  space within the planet and then the lights turn on  to reveal the jaw dropping two colour stalactite, 25 feet long , weighing in at 20 tons with a three meter natural plug anchoring it to the ceiling of the chamber.  The vision was a fantastic surprise, and then very unexpectedly a second chamber 100 feet down with a ceiling that looked so like many HiRISE Mars images.

It was as always a tonic to stand within yards of huge Atlantic waves crashing into both each other and the cliffs near Fanore Beach. There is an Earthy pleasure in tasting sea salt on your own face and standing in a gale full of sea foam bubbling like jelly Guinness on a limestone beach in winter.

We stayed at Trident Holiday Homes Lisdoonvarna


We had a super meal  for our wedding anniversary at The Wild Honey Restaurant in Listoonvarna

We visited Doolin Cave and Allwee Cave


You can download the fact sheet here in pdf form and learn more about
the GRAIL mission in a pdf here

grail_information_sheet.pdf
File Size: 191 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

What's Up for January 2012 from Jane Houston Jones

    Picture

    Author


    Deirdre Kelleghan is amateur astronomer,
    an artist and also  likes to write.

    "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted"
    Plutarch

    Categories

    All
    Action Sun
    Apollo
    Art
    Astronomy
    Building The Scientific Mind 2013
    Comets
    Comet Sketch
    Drawing
    Dublin City Of Science 2012
    Earth
    Education
    Event
    Events
    Learning
    Lunar Eclipse
    Mars
    Mars Science Laboratory
    Mars Science Laboratory Space Exploration Education
    Mars Science Laboratory - Space Exploration - Education
    Meteors
    Moon
    My Solar Inspired Paintings
    NASATweetup.Space Exploration
    Outreach
    Painting
    Perseids
    Science
    Sketching
    Solar Orbiter
    Solar Sketch
    Solar Sketching
    Solar System
    Space Exploration
    Sun
    The Moon
    The Sun
    Tweetup
    UNAWE International Event - What
    Unesco

    Archives

    February 2020
    December 2019
    September 2017
    September 2015
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    October 2009

Proudly powered by Weebly