Moon and Planet Phases Template

thingiverse

This is a thin flat template for sketching lunar and planetary phases with a mechanical pencil. The traceable curves are the longitudes at 0 degrees (half moon) and multiples of 10 degrees from center, but +/- 80 degrees are not shown because they are just too close to the limb. The traces are interrupted by latitude lines at the equator and multiples of +/- 10 degrees north and south, although +/- 80 are not distinct from the poles. I use this 2 ways: 1) tracing a selected limb and longitude according to how the moon or Venus appears, from thin crescent to nearly-full 2) tracing every curve gives me a latitude/longitude grid (dashed longitudes, with gaps at latitudes) so I can better place features I'm observing such as those in the Lunar 100 (https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/the-lunar-100/) I designed it in OpenScad, and although I didn't mark it as officially Customizable, most of the key parameters are at the top of the file and easily modified.