richardhandy – Page 137 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Dust storms on a ruddy desert world

With Mars rising in the early morning hours and slowly increasing in apparent
diameter, Mars observers are already gearing up for this apparition, even though
opposition and closest approach are still six months away.

Along with the opportunity to see the bright Martian South Polar Cap, the North
Polar Hood (the clouds surrounding and hiding the North Polar Cap), famous albedo
features like Syrtis Major, atmospheric clouds, and the giant shield volcano Olympus
Mons (the mightiest volcano in the solar system), observers always have the
potential to see a dust storm develop on Mars.

Although dust storms on Mars can become giant planet-encircling storms that obscure
the surface and cut short the observing season (as happened in 2001), they can also
remain regional, expanding rapidly to cover an area the size of the continental US
and then subsiding. At least two regional events occurred during the 2005
apparition.

The excellent set of Mars sketches by Jeremy Perez on ASOD (8 May 2007) prompted me
to look through my own logbook where I found these two observations made three days
before Jeremy’s drawings. This storm had first been recorded by imagers on 18
October in the area known as Chryse, site of the first Viking landing. By the time
of my first observation, the dust had spread south and was already obscuring
familiar dark albedo features.

In the second observation, Mars had rotated about 40 degrees of longitude, but the
dust had been travelling rapidly west, apparently flowing through the immense fault
(4500km/2800miles) known as Valles Marineris which is associated with the albedo
feature Coprates. The dust later spread over Solis Lacus (the Eye of Mars) and on
towards the south polar region but never turned into a global storm.

This dust storm was bright in unfiltered light but observers wishing to track dust
closely need to use red filters–dust is bright in red light. Wratten #23A and #21
filters are good for small apertures of 8″ (20cm) or less. Those with larger
instruments can use the W25 filter.

The sketches were done using 2B, HB, and 4H graphite pencils, color pencils, and a
blending stump on Strathmore 70 lb. paper. The circle templates are 2 inches. I
like to include the line drawing diagram next to my sketch to label important
features without making the drawing too busy.

A dust storm developing on Mars is a fascinating natural phenomenon to see. Good
luck with this apparition and Happy Mars Observing!

Michael Rosolina
Friars Hill, WV USA

Mighty Copernicus

My second (and last) crater so far. Not the most easy to draw, but he was asking for
it. Drawing the moon is a lot more difficult than expected. There are so many
features to pay attention to. I had to stop sketching after an hour, because the
shadows were changing the view.

The image is flipped to match a North down view.

Date : June, 05, 2006
Time : 21.10 UT
Seeing : 2

Scope : ETX 105
EP : Vixen zoom with barlow.
Power : x240
Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.

View from a high point

Walled Plain Craters Hipparchus and Albateginius

Close to the visible center of the lunar nearside are the north-south crater pair
Hipparchus and Albateginius. On this evening from my observing site they were on
the sunrise terminator. Hipparchus at 150 km. in diameter is the largest and
oldest of the pair dating from the pre-Nectarian period (4 billion years ago). At
and internal to the northeast rim of Hipparchus lies crater Horrocks (30 km.) with
its bright rim and the deep dark center.

Just beyond the Hipparchus crater rim to the southeast is the young, small (15
km.) crater Pickering also with a well illuminated rim. Near the center of
Hipparchus crater Hipparchus X is visible and between it and Horrocks a small
narrow rille was easily seen which is parallel to Rima Reaumur lying out beyond
the Hipparchus rim to the northwest (not sketched). Between Hipparchus and
Albateginius are the old craters Halley (37 km.) and Hind (31 km.). Most of the
rim of crater Albateginius (139 km.) is brightly illuminated by the sun as are two
high points within the “well of darkness”. The illuminated point closest to the
center is the top of a central peak. The other bright point closer to the rim is
the high point on the margin of crater Klein (44km) sitting in darkness. At the
beginning of the sketch these two points were not visible but appeared about 45
minutes after I started.

I tried to picture in my mind what the view would be like if you could stand on
either of these high points and look out and down. Wouldn’t that be a sight?

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils and a blending stump. Contrast was slightly increased after scanning.
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 241X
Date: 5-24-2007 2:05-3:20 UT
Temperature: 23° C (74° F)
Partly cloudy with haze, light winds
Seeing: Antoniadi II
Colongitude 356.7 °
Lunation 7.28 days
Illumination 52 %

Frank McCabe

Solar protuberances

This summer I visited a friend in La Palma (Canaries) and could observe the
wonderful sky that there they have with his telescopes. One of them
dedicated to the solar observation is an apochromatic refractor 120 mm.
F/6,5 (Vixen), it has a filter installed H alpha SolarMax 90 (Coronado). The
day I observed he sun was completely clear, the solar limb was full of
protuberances and brilliant lines that following the magnetic fields. I took
immediately graphite pencil and white paper and began to draw everything
what he saw through the filter. I was very surprised because of the rapid
movement of the needles and arches that seems dramatic veils against the
dark sky. I tried to draw the variation of the forms with the passing of the
time but it was difficult. I will never forget that so magic experience.
You can see the place where I spent a week observing in this web site:
www.astropalma.com . When the drawing was finished I changed it to negative
in the computer and turned it a bit red.
Leonor Ana Hernandez

Naked eye bull

Here is a lawn chair observation under the freezing Austrian sky at 800m asl. It is
a simple but pleasant sketch of the Bull’s face. I was surprised to notice 3 pairs
of stars. The sky was not perfect dark, so there should be more stars to be picked
out from the cluster. Anyway, scopeless stargazing can be fun ! No cooldown time
needed. My legs and hands cooled down anyway at -9°Celsius. (a solid fuel hand
warmer is a must have)

Location : Bischofshofen, Austria
Date: Dec. 25, 2006 , 20.30UT
Seeing: 4 on a scale of 5, Transparency : 4
Air Temp.: -9° Celsius
Naked eye observation
Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.

Sundown at Gauss

At one day past full moon old luna was arching it’s way to the high point for the
night when I selected for my sketching target craters along the terminator on the
eastern side of the moon. Six craters larger than 45 kilometers in diameter are
included in this sketch. With only the highest points along the western rim being
touched by sun rays, it is sundown at crater Gauss. With Gauss measuring 177 km.
in diameter it is categorized as a walled plain crater and dates back to the
Nectarian age (3.9-3.8 billion years ago). Southwest of Gauss with the floor in
darkness except for the illuminated central peak we have crater Hahn, a formation
slightly younger than Gauss and smaller at 84 km. To the north of Hahn is a crater
of the same age as Gauss known as Berosus. It measures 77 km in diameter and its
western wall is not as high as that of its partner Hahn. The largest crater on the
western side of the sketch is Geminus at 86 km. It has a low central peak and no
crater rays, although it is the youngest of the craters in the sketch at about 2 billion
years of age. The smaller crater close to Geminus to the east is 47 km. crater
Bernoulli. And finally to the south of Geminus is crater Burckhardt at 57 km. in
diameter with small craters straddling it to the southeast and southwest.

Sketching: Graphite 2H pencils and India ink on
White 8.5”x11” copy paper
Telescope: 10” f/5.7 Dobsonian 6mm eyepiece
Time: 10-8-2006, 5:30-6:30 UT
Colongitude: 101.6°
Weather: clear, calm
Seeing : Antoniadi III

Frank McCabe

A Trip Down Memory Lane

As with all Galaxies, looking at Messier 81 is another trip down the
collective memory lane of the Universe. Twelve million years – that’s
the age of the light reaching us from Bode’s Galaxy and by cosmical
standards that’s not even really old.

Just like M 82, its edge-on partner galaxy, M 81 is well worth a closer
look, even though the number of visible detail is by far smaller than in
M 82.

What you can actually see is a bright core and a diffuse halo, quickly
dropping of in brightness from the center to the edges and with only
undefined detail visible.

Still Bode’s Galaxy belongs to the brightest and most fascinating
objects of its kind, a must-see for any astronomer out there in search
of a good view.

Date: April 12, 2007
Location: Kegelhaus, Erbendorf, Bavaria, Germany
Instrument: Dobsonian 8″ f/6
Constellation: Ursa major
Seeing: II of VI
Transparency: II of VI
NELM: 6m0
Magnification: 133x

Sebastian Lehner

“Himmel und erde”

Total Solar Eclipse 19th Century

This is a painting in David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897, American Book
Company by the 19th century German painter W. Kranz. Unfortunately this beautiful
plate is water damaged top center in my copy of the textbook. The author retrieved
this plate from “Himmel und erde” edited by Dr. Schwahn. Another painting by Kranz
can be found at the LPOD website May 29, 2006. The image on LPOD is a poorly
scanned copy. I have seen a number of Kranz’s drawings and paintings and I tend to
think of him as a19th century forerunner to the great 20th century artist, Chesley
Bonestell.

David P. Todd writes this on pages 297-298 about W. Kranz’s painting in the
frontispiece:

“…Total eclipses occurring near the middle of the year are longest, if at the same
time the moon is near perigee, and their paths fall within the tropics. Always
after total eclipse is over, the partial phase begins again, growing smaller and
smaller and the sun getting continually brighter, until last contact when full
sunlight has returned.… If the atmosphere is saturated with aqueous vapor, weird
color effects ensue, by no means overdrawn in the frontispiece.”

Frank McCabe

Pair of Cherries

The object is “h x Perseii” the double cluster in Persei, through the
telescope it seems to be a pair of cherries hanging on a little tail.

The telescope is a Meade 8″ and observing through a Swan ocular 36 mm
with a big field of vision. I made it with a pencil on a white paper but with some
problems, because the night was very bad, almost covered by clouds moving very
fast, that covered the image through the telescope. It was very hard to sketch in these
conditions, but I was enjoying it very much. This is the original hand made with and
later changed to negative with the computer.

The date: 14 October 2006 in Guadalajara, Spain.

Regards.
Leonor

Magnetic markers

Living in the UK one has to embrace every opportunity to get the pencils out and
enjoy a little astro sketching as breaks in the cloud cover can be frustratingly
infrequent.

For me this includes capturing Sun spots in white light when the sun shines and
I’m close to my observatory with a few quiet minutes to spare.

I caught the complex Sun Spot group 956 during the afternoon of Saturday 19th May
as it transited the meridian.

Antares 105mm F15 Achromatic refractor
Baader solar film white light filter
Denk binoviewer with Celestron Axiom 23mm eyepieces
Magnification of 163X

Cartridge paper, HB Derwent pencil & blending stump.
Image scanned and mirror flipped.

Dale Holt, Hertfordshire, UK