richardhandy – Page 127 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

In the court of the King

Object Name: NGC 6939 (H.VI.42)Object Type: Open Cluster

Constellation: Cepheus

Right Ascension (2000.0): 20h 31.4m

Declination (2000.0): +60° 38′

Magnitude: 7.8

Diameter: 8′

Trumpler Type: I 1 m

Telescope: Parks Astrolight EQ6 • 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector

Eyepiece: 7.5mm Parks Gold Series Plössl • 120x, 26′ FoV

Date & Time: 8 September 2007 • 03:30 UT

Seeing Conditions: NELM 6.3 • Pickering 8

Observing Location: Cuyamaca Mts., San Diego Co., California

Sketch Information: Digital rendition based on paper and pencil eyepiece sketch.

NGC 6939 is a subtle, yet beautiful open cluster in the southwestern reaches of
Cepheus, near the border with Cygnus. NGC 6939 is famous for sharing a low-power
field of view with the spiral galaxy NGC 6946; this celestial odd-couple has been
the target of countless astrophotographs. The juxtaposition of these two objects is
equally accessible to the visual observer with access to dark skies and a field of
view wide enough to accommodate the 38′ that separate the duo.

The most expeditious way for the star-hopper to locate this object is to center your
scope on 3rd magnitude Eta (η) Cephei and sweep about 1.5° east and just over 1°
south with your lowest-power, widest-field eyepiece. At 30x, I see a fairly
conspicuous patch of nebulosity studded with a few dozen faint stars nestled in a
very rich patch of the Milky Way. The spiral galaxy NGC 6946 glows feebly ½° away
to the southeast.

Zeroing in on this stellar concentration with higher magnifications brings out a
delicate array of faint stars ranging from magnitude 11 down to 14 and beyond. The
soft, often glittering haze of unresolved stars persists in the background even at
high magnifications. The stars seem to be arranged in strands stretching toward the
east like gleaming dewdrops in a broken spider’s web. In that direction (east) it
is very difficult to discern where the cluster ends and the starry expanse of the
Milky Way begins. The western edge of the cluster, in contrast is sharply defined,
particularly on the southwestern side. This sudden drop-off in the stellar
population gives me the impression of an interposing finger of dark nebulosity
thrusting northwestward.

Sir William Herschel discovered NGC 6969 on September 9, 1798 with his 18.7-inch
reflector. This cluster lies at a distance of about 4,000 light-years and is
believed to be 1.8 billion years old based on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of its
constituent stars.

Eric Graff

Lunar eclipse duet

I had wonderfully clear weather the morning of August 28th, 2007 and was able to create a sequence of sketches of the total lunar eclipse for the ingress side of the event. Unfortunately the Eucalyptus grove in the west blocked my attempt to sketch the egress. Erika Rix graciously offered to animate this sequence for me, thank you so much Erika, you did such a wonderful job! I hope you all had a chance to witness this one, it was an awesome and colorful event.

Telescope:12″ SCT f/10
Eyepiece: 35mm Televue Panaoptic
Magnification: 87X
Medium: white Conte’ Crayon and colored pastels on black 400 series Artagain paper

Richard Handy – Sketches
Erika Rix- Animation

Ice Blue Vega

Here is a simple sketch of the dazzling light from Vega. A mag zero star fills the
field with a radiant glow. It sure ruins my night vision, making it hard and almost
painfull to look for faint companions. It is my impression that 3 little stars
suround Vega. It’s a daunting task to find a sweet spot on my retina for the fainter
stars, while Vega tries to burn a hole in my eye. I could not resist but to hold my
hand against my head to darken the eyepiece as if a streetlight was interfering with
my observation. Useless of course. I also tried to show the secondary spectrum of
the (achromatic) Skywatcher around Vega. I hope it makes sense.
Date : September 4, 2007
Time : 22.00UT
Scope : Skywatcher 102/500
Vixen LV Zoom at 8mm
Power : x63
FOV: 48′
Filter : none
Seeing : 3.5/5
Transp. : 3/5
Nelm : 5.3
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.
Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet

Twice as beautiful

Alcor and Mizar. Pencil on white paper inverted in Photoshop. This is the first
sketch I’d been able to make, in my first observing session for months (due mainly
to bad weather and constant cloud cover). It was made on August 24th, 2007, using
my 4″ refractor, ideal for double star observations. The conditions were pretty
horrible – milky skies and a waxing, almost full Moon.
Date: 24th August 2007
Instrument: 4″ refractor
Magnification: 42x
Location: My backyard, Isle of Wight, England
Conditions: Horrible! Waxing, almost full Moon, hazy skies. Not much use for
‘proper’ deep sky observing.
NELM: 5.0
Notes; A well-known double. A beautiful sight in the refractor

Faith Jordan

Cosmic needle

2007 August 11, 0340 UT
Erika Rix
PCW Memorial Observatory
Zanesville, Ohio USA

NCG 6503

An Orion ED80 was used on an LXD75 mount, all of which were on antivibration pads in
the observatory. The eyepiece was a Zhumell 21-7mm zoom and a WO dielectric
diagonal.

This sketch was done with Rite in the Rain paper, a number 2 and .3mm as well as
.5mm mechanical pencils

Canals and the skeptic

The above drawings show the canals and oases of Mars which in the late 19th
century became more prominent with the melting of the nearest polar cap or so it
was claimed at that time. In a never ending on going process, science progresses
by continuously cleaning out its closets of old incorrect information as new
observations and experiments reveal the errors. Our Earth continues to overtake
Mars for the rendezvous in December. Have you ever wondered what Schiaparelli,
Lowell, W. H. Pickering, Campbell, Hussey and others were seeing at the eyepiece
to draw the canale, channels or canals on the Mars sketches they made? The answer
may have been explained by Vincenzo Cerulli an Italian astronomer living at the
same time as Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell. After the “canal skeptic”,
Cerulli studied Mars for a couple of oppositions, he found he could duplicate
the canals or lines seen by many Mars observers using opera glass to examine small
features on the moon.
This phenomenon is neither an illusion nor a real exact representation. It is the
eye and brain interacting to fill in small faint features. If you casually examine
the faces on USA paper currency you will see lines across the foreheads. If you
look again using a magnifying glass you can see these lines are dashes and dots. So
if you begin to see canals on Mars near the end of the year, its just you eyes and
brain conspiring to play tricks on you. The time to observe Mars again is just
beginning. Don’t forget to make drawings or log records.

The above drawings are from page 358 of David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897,
American Book Company

Frank McCabe

Stan’s Nebula

NGC 7048

I have a very dear friend who inspired this little deep sky sketch and I wish to
share the story with you.
Stan Waterman and I are very close friends but as astronomers we are ‘poles’
apart. Stan a scientist never looks through his telescopes he uses them as lenses
for his mighty camera. His aim is to locate extra solar planets by measuring the
minute dimming of their stellar light. Clear night after clear night he captures
the photons on his chip from 20,000 distant suns in Cygnus and run’s them through
his self written software program to look for dips. He has been doing this for 5
years and has amassed terabytes of data.
I for my sins am a visual observer and a romancer of the heavens stealing my
photons with pencil and pastel.

In other ways Stan and I are much closer, we both love with a passion all of
natures splendours and discuss its wonders over coffee when our busy lives allow.
   We enjoy looking at the star patterns on the PC monitor that his camera has
capture in such profusion. A number of times we have wondered together over an
eye catching pretty, round planetary nebula caught in the web of stars.
These shared wondering inspired me to point my own telescope into Cygnus to
located this memorial to a once fine star and capture it with my pencil.

NGC 7048 Details:
Planetary Nebula
Constellation of Cygnus
Mag 12.1 Angular dimensions 1″
RA 2h 14m 33sec DEC +46deg 19m 23sec

Telescope/observation details:

14″ F5 Newtonian, magnification 175X, fov 0′ 17″
Seeing Ant 11, Transparency good
UHC Filter
Chippingdale observatory, Nr Buntingford, UK

Classic Southern Moonscape

Craters Clavius and Blancanus

Among the large craters of the lunar southern highlands, two nearly 4 billions old
impacts stood out on this morning before my local sunrise. These craters are 225
km.diameter Clavius and smaller 109 km. Blancanus. Clavius is not only old and
large but is blanketed with numerous craters and craterlets. At the center of this
large crater are the reduced remains of once regal central peaks. The atmosphere
was steady enough to pick out cratelets less than 1.5 km in diameter during
periods of excellent seeing. Crater Clavius is famous for its semicircular crater
sequence of decreasing size beginning with 49 km. Rutherfurd at the inner
southeastern wall and continuing with 27km. D, 20 km. C, 12 km N, 11.3 km J and
7.5 km JA. The north-northeastern rim of Clavius has a large crater resting it.
This 52 km. diameter crater is Porter. A broad crater ray was clearly visible
crossing the floor of Clavius just to the west of Porter and Clavius C. Much of
the floor of crater Clavius
remains smooth which implies the flow of melted rock in the past. Some geologists
speculate it is from the ejecta of the Orientale basin. Some small secondary crater
chains point back in that direction.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x12”, white and
black Conte’
pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased after
scanning.

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 9-2-2007 8:15-9:25 UT
Temperature: 17°C (62°F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi II-III
Co longitude: 53.9°
Lunation: 20.39 days
Illumination: 70 %

Frank McCabe

Swirling starry majesty

I captured M106 from my astronomy club’s dark sky location at Crowley Nature Center
in northeast Sarasota County, Florida. I was able to detect structure quite easily
under dark, transparent skies, and it made for an enjoyable sketch.
This sketch was rendered on Strathmore Windpower Sketch paper with a General’s Extra
Black Layout pencil. MGI Photosuite III was used for post processing.

Jason Aldridge
North Port, FL

Eighteen years ago

A Total Lunar Eclipse of the Past: August 16, 1989

On this evening as the moon rose it was both cloudy and foggy over Lake Michigan
to the east. It looked as if the weather was going to spoil the show. As
Capricornus carried the moon higher in the sky to the south, conditions improved
and eventually the entire sky cleared as totality began. During the second half of
totality the moon nearly disappeared from view. This was a dark lunar eclipse.
Just after 10 pm local time I made this color pencil sketch on black construction
paper to approximate the 50mm binocular view.

Frank McCabe