Mars – November 17, 2007
Sketch and Details by Barry Chase
First sketch of Mars, waited patiently for cobblestone clouds to give brief glimpses here and there.
On a side note, Last night was the first time I’ve effectively used 240x.. I was beginning to think it was useless to barlow my 10mm
M11
Sketch and Details by Kiminori Ikebe
M11(NGC 6705) Sct open cluster
Difficulty level 1
Date of observation: 1999/10/06 20:23
Observing site: Makinoto
Transparency/seeing/sky darkness: 3/5/3
Instruments: 32cm Dobsonian with XL14 at 110x
Width of field: 0.6 degree
This is a fine and bright cluster containing many stars. At 110x it is highly concentrated but almost completely resolved. There is a 7.8-magnitude star near the center. It is very conspicuous. There are two faint stars nearby. It is a fine sight with an equal double on the south side, which is as bright as the star near the center. The distribution of the resolved stars is quite uneven. The general shape of the cluster is that of a diamond and a beautiful chain of stars is seen in the southeast outlying area. Dark areas and dense patches of stars are intermingled. There are scattered outliers northeast of the cluster. They seem to be members of the cluster.
Jupiter: January 28, 1897
Sketch by H. McEwan
Published in Memoirs of the British Astronomical Association, Volume VI, 1898, starting on page 103 available at Google Books.
Saturn
Sketch and Details by Eric Graff
Parks Astrolight EQ6 – 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector
7.5mm Parks Gold Series Plossl + 2x Barlow – 240x
12 April 2008 – 03:30 to 04:30 UT
Sketched from my backyard in San Diego, CA
Sketched with #2 pencil, blending stump, on 100# index card; processed with Microsoft Picture It! With special thanks to Sol Robbins for graciously sharing his excellent templates.
M13
Sketch and Details by Rony De Laet
The Great Globular in Hercules.
One of the finest globular clusters for northern hemisphere observers is undoubtedly M13 in Hercules. With a magnitude of 5.8, the cluster is a naked eye object under mag 6 skies. The cluster is also an easy to find object, even for novice observers. Just draw a line from Eta Herculis to Zeta Herculis and you’ll bump into M13. Just put Eta at the northern edge of the field of view, and M13 will appear centered in your view. Under dark skies, the Globular can be seen without optical aid as a tiny smudge of light.
While many globulars have a star like core, M13 appeared to me with a granular core. Its halo is very large compared to other globulars. I could detect a mag 10 star at the western border of the halo. The bright star at the top of the sketch is Eta Herculis.
With M13 riding high in the sky, try to compare it with other globulars like M3, M5, M10 and M12. At first, these globulars may all look alike. But with patience, each globular will show slightly different features!
Site : Bischofshofen, Austria
Date : May 3, 2008
Time : around 22.30UT
Binoculars : Bresser 8×56
FOV: 5.9°
Filter : none
Mount : Trico Machine Sky Window
Seeing : 3/5
Transp. : 4/5
Nelm : 6.0
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with Photo Paint, based on a raw pencil sketch.
Aristillus and Autolycus
Sketch and Details by Richard Handy
Sitting replendently on the the eastern margin of Mare Imbrium, 56 km Aristillus and 41 km Autolycus, brothers of Copernician age, are a startling sight in the late lunar afternoon sunshine. Hexagonal in appearance, Aristillus’s broad and radially splayed glacis dominates the mare surface in this region. It’s wide, brilliantly lit terraces apparently have evidenced some mass wasting since its creation a little over a billion years ago. Resting on the floor, some 3650 m deep, the glowing central peaks are roughly 900 meters high. Rays, some quite prominent, emanate from the crater’s center. To the northwest of Aristillus, swathes of darker mare may indicate areas not fully dusted by the ejecta from this massive impact, or perhaps ejecta excavated from deep within the extant mare is responsible for these low albedo areas. Approximately 60 km to the south, Autolycus’s glacial nimbus appears almost serene in comparison to the complex nature of Aristillus’s glacis. Half of the floor of Autolycus is composed of quite torturous terrane including a strange floor subsidence to the eastern section of the floor.
Here are the sketch details:
Subject: Aristillus and Autolycus Rukl: 12
Date: 10-13-06 Start: 9:15 UT End: 10:50 UT
Lunation: 20.90 days Phase: 277.5 deg Illumination: 56.5%
Colongitude: 164.8 deg Lib. in Lat.: -5 deg 40 min Lib. in Long.: +7 deg 39 min
Seeing: Antoniadi III-IV with 30 seconds of Ant. II every 20 minutes
Weather: Clear early, turning to occasional clouds mid to late during session, 10-15 knot winds late.
Telescope: 12″ Meade SCT F10
Binoviewer: W.O. Bino-P with 1.6X Nosepiece.
Eyepieces: W.O. WA 20mm Plossls
Magnification: 244X
Lunation: 18.48 days Phase: 311.1 deg Illumination: 82.9%
Colongitude: 133.7 deg Lib in Lat.: -3 deg 53 min Lib in Long.: +5 deg 12 min
Sketch medium: White and black Conte’ Crayons on black textured Strathmore paper.
Sketch size: 18″ x 24″
C/2004 F4 (Bradfield)
Sketch and Details by Martin Mc Kenna
C/2004 F4 Bradfield on April 29th 2004 at 03.47 LT as seen through the 8″ F/6.3 S.Cass among the star fields of Pisces low in the NE very close to the sun. This was a beautiful comet – I could see it rise tail first over my garden trees through my 10X50 binoculars and finder scope. The white straight dust tail was 5 degrees long with a compact well condensed white/green coma and spine. However this morning was a time of surprise and discovery – as soon as I swept up the comet I was shocked to see a bright anti-tail pointing toward the sun which was not their before. This was my first observation of an anti-tail and I was among only a few lucky observers to have seen it.
Before it appeared in the morning sky the comet made for a spectacular sight in the SOHO LASCO C3 images where Bradfield could be seen completing a hairpin turn around the sun with an incredible bright curved tail. The comet looked like it was a living creature! This was the 18th comet discovered by the living legend known as William (Bill) Bradfield who found the comet close to the sun during an evenings comet search.
Mars: August 1892
Sketches by Professor W. W. Campbell
This series of Martian sketches was prepared by W. W. Campbell in 1892. They were printed the article, “The Lowell Observatory, In Arizona,” by Edward S. Holden in The Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Volume VI, 1894, pages 160-170 at Google Books.
M41
Sketch and Details by Wade V. Corbei
I was able to observe M41 (NGC 2287) on Jan. 18th (early 19th), the ONLY day so far this month that has allowed for any sort of observing.
I was actually quite surprised at this OC that contained quite a few star-chains that only brought more interest, complexity and beauty to this jewel of the night-sky residing within Canis Major. I was fortunate in that my one night of observing was extremely clear and steady, allowing for some great observing of many of the fainter stars within this region.
This sketch, like all others, started out with a plain ol’ mechanical pencil, a #2 pencil & paper (my sketch book). The original sketch was then scanned into and digitized in PhotoShop CS3.
According to my observing notes, I spent a total of 1-hour & 10-minutes at the EP sketching and observing this OC. The longer I gazed at this OC, more star-chains and fainter stars seemed to slowly emrge from the inky darkness. I do rememebr having to stretch a bit after observing and sketching this one.
Walther Crater
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe
On this spring evening I drove over to our local community college to pick up and bring home the observatory telescope which was in need of cleaning and minor repairs. When I finished that work the sky was clear so I decided to use the scope to make a lunar sketch. The target I selected for drawing was the large (140 km.) Nectarian period walled plain crater Walther. On older lunar atlases this crater is either labeled Walter or Valtherus but in 1982 the name was changed to the current Walther by the IAU. I have always found the moon shows off some of its best large craters at this time in the lunation. Walther is one of those great old highland craters with much to offer a careful observer. Most seasoned lunar observers are well aware of the Walther sunset ray, but even at sunrise this crater has its rewards. A combination of craters with a common dark floor rests on the eastern rim three kilometers above the shadowed floor of Walther. To the west beyond the dark floor is the cratered, off-centered “central” mountain group casting a long triangular shadow across the resurfaced floor to crater Walter E (13 km.). Four small 4-6 km. craterlets can be seen in the drawing although at the eyepiece additional smaller ones were clearly visible in moments of steady seeing. To the northeast of Walther another large 3.9 billion year old crater Aliacensis (80 km.) was showing terraced walls and a central peak. The large younger Eratosthenian crater to the north of Walther is Werner (71 km.). Like the other two it has an off-centered central peak as well.
This was one of those observing nights when you wish time would stand still. I watched the long triangular shadow from Walther’s central peak shorten by 40% in just 2 hours.
I must say this was a beautiful night for moon viewing.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x 12”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased (-2) and contrast increased (+2) after scanning using Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
Telescope: 13.1 inch f/ 6 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 333x
Date: 5-13-2008 1:35 – 3:20 UT
Temperature: 7° C (45° F)
high clouds, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co-longitude: 4°
Lunation: 7.6 days
Illumination: 59.7 %
Phase: 78.8°
Observing Location: +41°37′ +87°47′
Frank McCabe
