Author: Jeremy Perez

47 Tucanae

NGC 104/47 Tucanae
NGC 104 / 47 Tucanae
Sketch and Details by Scott Mellish

NGC 104/ 47 Tucanae
Globular Cluster
Ilford NSW Australia
17/10/09
56cm f5 Dobsonian Telescope
Field: 17′
Magnification: 354x
Sky Quality Meter reading: 21:78

White pen
Soft white pencil
Hard white pencil
White pastel chalk

I have made numerous attempts at sketching this remarkable globular cluster over the years, mostly in small telescopes at low power where it is just a bright ball. At higher magnification in my 56cm dob it is a vastly different object.

I had a dose of the Flu while I was away observing, but the sky was clear so I spent a solid two hours at the eyepiece sketching this globular, and it nearly done my head in. Every time I looked in the 8mm Ethos there seemed to be more and more stars to add, plus the 100deg FOV of this eyepiece was almost to much to handle.

The following night was clear again so I spent another 40mins just dabbling with the sketch to try and get as accurate eyepiece view as possible.

I have never been 100% satisfied with the sketches I have done previously of NGC 104 and most made the bin. This one however came out fairly good, it is certainly the best I could do with 47 Tuc.

I do not like to overdo eyepiece sketches, especially with size and brightness as one can be tempted to get a bit carried away, and detract from the visual perspective.

There has been no processing done with the sketch.

I do not think I will be doing NGC 104 again any time soon.
Too many stars!

Scott Mellish.

Posidonius and Chacornac Craters

Posidonius crater and Chacornac crater
Posidonius and Chacornac Craters
Sketch and details by Manuel Ángel Pacheco

* Posidonius crater y Chacornac crater
* Lunar crater
* Fuente de Piedra, Málaga (Spain)
* 27/06/2009 (23h40m, local time)
Material used:
Pencil and paper with post-processing with Photoshop CS2
Instrument:
Celestron Telescope S / C 150mm f10 Nextstar and Celestron Omni Eyepiece 9mm (166x)
Atmospheric conditions:
Transparency good
Seeing: II (I: very bad – V: very good)

The Sun and AR1035

Sun (AR1035)
Sun (AR1035)
Sketch and details by Michael Rosolina

Here are a pair of white light observations I made of a new Solar Cycle 24 active region which suddenly appeared on the solar disk on December 14th. One can see that these areas of solar activity are changing constantly as they rotate with the Sun. The sunspot group spans a distance from east to west of about nine Earth diameters or 72,000 miles/116,000 km.

The sketches were done in the field with 2B and HB graphite pencils. I viewed the Sun through handheld image stabilized binoculars with homemade filters over the objectives. Remember: NEVER look at the Sun unless you have approved solar filters covering the objective end of your telescope or binoculars or you are using a solar telescope designed for that purpose.

The Sun and AR 1035
Star and active region
White Sulphur Springs, WV USA
16 and 17 December 2009

Michael Rosolina

Caroline’s Discovery

NGC 659
NGC 659
Sketch and Details by Paul Mettam

CH 20 NGC 659
OPEN CLUSTER
CASSIOPEIA

12″ NEWTONIAN F5
X165
FIELD OF VIEW: 13′

12 / 12 / 2009
LONG EATON, DERBYSHIRE, ENGLAND.

GRAPHITE PENCIL, WHITE PAPER, INVERTED.

NOTES:

With Cassiopeia high overhead in the evening at this time of year it is a good time to view its many deep sky objects. This cluster, which is about 6′ of arc in diameter, was discovered by Caroline Herschel on September 27th 1783 and is number 20 on her list. Four magnitude 10 stars form a rectangle on the east side and about 30 magnitude 10 to 13 stars form chains to the west of this. A close double star lies near the centre. It is difficult to decide where the outer edge of the cluster lies as it is in a rich area.

This cluster is about 9200 light years away in the Perseus Spiral Arm and is around 35 million years old. It has been found to contain several fast spinning, giant, Be type variable stars.

Mists of the Charioteer

M37
Messier 37
Sketch and details by Peter Mayhew

Object Name: M37
Object Type: Open cluster
Location: York, UK
Date: 6th December 2009

When I first started staring at the night sky with binoculars a couple of years ago, I used to gaze for hours at the open clusters M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga; they seemed like patches of mist drifting across the rich stellar backdrop. Now I own a telescope, two of these, M36 and M38, resolve easily into visible stars, but at low power M37 retains its ethereal misty quality. With direct vision only a few stars can be seen, but they seem surrounded by faint mist. Moving around the scene, myriads of fainter stars in the catch sensitive spots in my retina and flicker in and out of existence, much like they seem to with the brighter globular clusters. Because of its delicate flickering quality, it’s by far my favourite of the three through a telescope. Several dark lanes cut through the mist, enhancing the seasonal character of the scene.

I use a Skywatcher Skyliner 150mm f8 Dobsonian, and viewed this through a 25mm eyepiece between 19.30 and 20.30 UT. I drew using graphite pencil on white paper, digitally scanned the image and reversed the colours using editing software.

Crater Euclides and Montes Riphaeus

Crater Euclides and Montes Riphaeus

Crater Euclides and Montes Riphaeus
Sketch and details by Frank McCabe

In southern Oceanus Procellarum not far from mare Cognitum you can locate a bright little Copernican era crater that formed after the last of the dark lava had solidified. This little 12 kilometer crater wearing the bright ejecta blanket is Euclides. The bright ejecta makes it easy to pick out at high sun and with a little bit of shadow and high magnification the nearby Riphaeus mountains also show some fine relief. In the upper left of the sketch note the front range of these mountains which date back 4 billion years. These mountains are likely the remains of a very large crater rim that was not completely buried in the lava flooding. Other similar sized and smaller craters in the region also reveal some bright ejecta betraying their young ages. To learn more read the LPOD caption for May 24, 2006.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Canson paper 10″x 12″, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils , and Conte’crayons, a blending stump, plastic and gum erasers. Brightness was decreased -2 and contrast increased +2 using the scanner for this sketch
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian with 6mm (241x) eyepiece
Date: 11-28-2009 4:15-5:40 UT
Temperature: 0°C (32°F)
Clear becoming partly cloudy, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi II -III
Co longitude 44°
Lunation 11.4 days
Illumination 80.7%

Frank McCabe

Jupiter in Motion

3D Sketch of Jupiter
Sketch and Description by Fred Burgeot

From several of my sketches of Jupiter, I made a planisphere of this planet and a rotating globe that I would like to submit….The sketches were made between july 20 and august 17 from France with good seeing conditions (4 to 8/10). The scope is a 16″dobsonian (Mirro Sphere) with an equatorial plateform, magnification is 350X with a binoviewer, no filter. 1H15 for each individual sketch, 8H to make the planisphere (handmade), and 1H to map it on a rotating sphere with the computer. My friend Pascal Chauvet helped me in this last task.

Best regards,
Fred Burgeot.

Jupiter - Flat

Flat Version of Jupiter Sketch
By Fred Burgeot

Solar Prominence – October 10, 2008

Solar Prominences

Solar Prominence
Sketch and Details by Jeff Young

My permanent pier is a bit high for this time of year (when the sun is so low to the horizon), so I had to rotate the binocular head a bit to see through it. The sketch orientation therefore doesn’t match the sun graphic (courtesy of Tilting Sun by Les Cowley) in the upper right.

I’ve only been doing solar sketches for about 6 months now, but this was definitely the most fun to sketch so far. Conditions were pretty poor (with seeing alternating between bad and horrible, and transparency not much better), but there was gobs of detail to take in and try to reproduce.

White Derwent Graphitint pencil on black Artagain paper. Solarscope 70mm h-alpha filter / Tele Vue Pronto / Astro-Physics Barlow / Baader MkV binoviewer / Tele Vue 19mm Panoptics / Astro-Physics 400QMD equatorial mount. 10-Oct-2008; 10:20UT; County Louth, Ireland.

Mixed Media Daytime Moon

Daytime Moon

Gibbous Moon
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

On Saturday October 18, 2008 at 8:00 am local time, I was out walking in east Mesa, Arizona on a gorgeous morning with the air temperature about 22°C (72°F) and the humidity in the high teens. Over in the western sky the 19 day old waning gibbous moon was riding high and bright in a remarkable deep blue sky. Never in my life have I seen such a bright daytime moon. I stopped in front of a nearby building roof with a tall palm tree on the other side. I took out of the folder I was carrying an index card and using a pencil I drew the moon on one side and the building roof and palm tree on the other side. I jotted down some notes on colors and positions. When I got back home to Illinois, I combined the pencil drawings and notes into a mixed media sketch. For the moon I used pastel pencils (white and black) and for the building and palm tree I used Cray-Pas oil pastels on deep blue construction paper. Of course the view was much better than I am capable of capturing but I will never forget the treat of this perfect morning.

Sketching:

Naked eye drawing
Date and Time: 10-18-2008 8: 00 am PST
Location: Power Road and Broadway Ave. Mesa, Az.
Weather: Perfect
Moon at 19 days, high in the western sky.

For this sketch I used: dark blue construction paper, 10”x 8”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Also cray-pas oil pastels for the building and tree. This sketch was put together from pencil sketches and notes made at the time of the observation.

Frank McCabe