Comet – Page 9 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) from Germany

Hello comet-hunters,

yesterday I sketched the comet C2011 / L4 Panstarrs. It was very hard, to find the comet near the brightened horizon. Jupiter and the moon were wachting over us from above 😉 My friends and I “scanned” the sky with our binoculars (10×50, 7×50 and a zoom). Shortly after seven o´clock p.m. we found this 2 mag bright object. We was somewhat disappointet, because we thought he was brighter and larger.

At my TMB 115/805 I used 25 – 70x with a zoom eyepiece and the 31mm Nagler. So I wondered about the little consendation head and the two shorter different long tails of the comet in the eyepiece. Most fotos shows us a slim comet with star-shaped head.

Hope you like the famous comet. There are only a few sketches in the www, but many photos 🙂

CS Uwe

Object: comet – C2011 L4 Panstarrs
Brightness: about 2 mag
Date: 15.03.2013 – 7.00 p.m.
Location: near Würzburg Germany
Conditions: – 4°C, no wind, quite air
Telescope: TMB 115/805 No. 083 with Baader Zoom eyepiece

Comet PanSTARRS and the 1 Day Old Moon

On the evening of March 12, 2013, I was treated to a pleasant view of the 1.26 day old Moon (1.8% illuminated) and comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS from 07:00pm to 07:20pm local time Mesa, Arizona. I had an excellent view of the clear western sky and I could see the comet naked eye about 6.5 diameters to the south of the Moon.

To assist in making the rough graphite sketch I used a 5x 50mm finder scope removed from an Orion telescope. After returning home from Arizona to Illinois I made a color drawing from field notes and the graphite sketch. I was planning on a color sketch but the number of colors need and blending seemed too much for the 30 minutes to comet set.

Sketching:

Graphite pencils: 6B, 4B and 2B also black and white pastel pencils on white sketching paper.

Color drawing was made with black and white charcoal pencils and an assortment of color pencils on medium blue paper.

Frank McCabe

C/2012 K5 (LINEAR)

• Object Name: C2012 K5 LINEAR
• Object Type: Comet
• Location: Bonilla Spain
• Date: 01/05/2013
• Media: Graphite Pencil HB 2, torchon 1 and 130g drawing sheet
• inverted colors with GIMP 2.8

Observation notes: New 10” dob telescope. Object Elevation +68 º. Male 5,5. -2º C. Moisture 70 º/º.

Greetings to all visitors of this page.
PVG. Alcorcon, Madrid 01/15/2013

C/2012 K5 (LINEAR)

Hi Asod, all my best wishes for 2013 and a lot of nice daily sketches !

Object Name (LINEAR C/2012 K5)
Object Type (Comet)
Location (Val d’Issole – Provence – France)
Date ( from Dec. 2012-22 to Jan. 2013-05)
Media (graphite pencil, white paper, Paint.net for inversion )

In 40 years, I have already seen approximately twenty comets, LINEAR remains modest, but for me, this is the prettiest small one I observed.

To make this sketch I watched more than 12 nights with 1 to 2 hours per night to see and draw it. At year-end 2012, we had to wait early in the morning, because of the position and to avoid moon light. After the new-year passage it was more comfortable, the comet was walking near the zenith.

I evaluated the best magnitude end 2012 to 8.0 + / – 0.3. Today Jan 05 she fades out to 10 +/- 0.5.

Thanks to my friend’s astronomers in the region, I observed in four refractors, 80/480, 127/820, 102/1000, 140/1120 and two telescopes 114/500, 250/1000.

The comet was always relatively easy to catch with a wide field eyepiece, 40mm or 25mm.

The observation sites were distributed; we could compare the sky quality of Rocbaron, Rians, Flassans and Néoules.

What is interesting in the sequence is to see that near January 2nd the comet passed from one side of the ecliptic to the other, so 1 and 2 January’s tail and coma were not really separated. At the beginning of the sequence the comet follows her tail; Jan. 2 tail was behind the coma, aligned with us on earth. After that the comet flies before her tail. It’s a bit like a small cat playing with its tail.

Time is given in UT.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my sketch and a lot of clear skies to you all for 2013 !

Michel Deconinck

http://astro.aquarellia.com

Flight of comet Hergenrother

Object Name: 168P/Hergenrother
Object Type: Comet
Location: Lochem, The Netherlands
Date: October 7, 2012
Media: Graphyte pencil on white paper, inverted with Photoshop, animated GIF made using www.makeagif.com

Yesterday I observed the suddenly brightened comet 168P/Hergenrother. It now travels through the big Pegasus square and its magnitude is about m10.0 – easily visible in most backyard telescopes. I found the comet very quickly and at 50x my 280mm Dobson showed a littje fuzzy ball with a very faint tail. Higher magnification (150x) showed a bright, almost pinpoint nucleus and a wide tail stretching to the southeast. The best comet in years for me! The movement of the comet was so fast I could sketch it twice in the same starfield within one hour. At home I scanned the image and made an animated GIF to show the comet’s movement.
Unfortunately I can’t send animated GIFs via mail. To view the animation click: http://www.roelblog.nl/2012/10/komeet-in-uitbarsting-168phergenrother/

Kind regards and clear skies,
Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl

Comet 21P/Giacobini–Zinner

Hey Artists!

I send you the historic comet P/ Giacobini-Zinner (period: 6.6 years) from my observation
in aug, 1985. (info on my sketch).
This comet with the thin tail is the parent body of the Draconid-meteorshower which
had a major outburst 9. oct. 1985.
On that date my friend and I observed and photographed comet Halley while a rain of
meteors crossed the sky from the radiant in Draco. (I found Halley the day before).
I was happy to have seen and observed the parent body G-Z about two months earlier!
I used watercolorcrayons on black paper.
Location: Trondheim, Norway.
Best wishes from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) and Messier 45

Comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) and the Pleiades

Hey Artists!

I send you one of my observations of C/ 2004, Q2, Machholz
passing the well known open cluster Pleiades (M. 45).
The comet was a splended and interesting object to see in my 10 x 50 binos.
with over 90 deg. splitted dust and gastail and greenish coma. Info on sketch.
I used pen and pencil on white paper and inverted.
Location : Trondheim, Norway.

Thank you for all nice comments on my sketches!!

Best wishes and clear sky from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Comet West, East of the Milky Way

Hey Artists!

I would like to send you a restaurated sketch of comet West, one of the brightest comets
in the last 40 years. This is a naked-eye-sketch from my observation 8. Mar.- 76.
The nucleus of this comet broke apart in four, and at the end of this month I could
observe three components on line in the coma with my telescope!
The tail of comet West was also beautiful and bright with synchronic dusttail in
the beginning of this month. A very interesting object to observe in scope and 10 x 50 binos.
I used pen and pencil on white paper and inverted.
Location: Trondheim, Norway.

Best wishes from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

A Near Miss

Object Name: Comet Garradd and M92
Object Type: comet, globular gluster
Location: Cherry Springs Dark Sky Park, Pennsylvania
Date: February 3, 2012
Media: Digitally simulated chalk and white pencil on black paper.

I literally had seconds to glimpse it this morning, so my sketch cannot be accurate (9:30 UT). We were completely socked in. I waited 45 minutes for a tiny tear in the cloud cover to sweep rapidly across
Hercules. Then for another 30 minutes there was no other opportunity and I went back to bed. Now, a long wait under almost complete cloud cover makes you exceptionally well dark adapted… so I really believe it was the comet that I saw with the naked eye for a few moments as I was raising my binoculars with
shaking hands. Blue, near grey zone, altitude 2400 ft/700 m.

A Tale of Two Tails

Object Name: Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd
Object Type: Comet
Location: Caldera Rim Observatory, Jemez Springs, NM, 8300 ft. elevation
Date: March 23, 2012, approximately 10:15 PM
Media: Pencil on Tracing Paper, Multiple Layers for Color

Notes: We used a 20-inch F/5 telescope at 195X (13mm Ethos). This drawing is a composite of two overlapped sketches, one of green-grey luminosity, another of a dark red background that was observed. The sketches were scanned with a Kodak 10 megapixel digital camera while backlit by a red light, and were then aligned/combined in Photofiltre, to create a color image.

North is to the right in the image. We observed what appeared to be two tails, one green-grey, and another dark red (at the edge of visibility). When the comet nucleus was moved out of the view, we could follow the red “tail” for more than 1/2 degree, and it curved to the North. Distinct streamers (lines) could also be seen in the green-grey tail–at the edge of visibility. The faintest stars in the drawing are about magnitude 14.7.

The comet moved and changed during the observation. The drawing should be representative of what was seen at approximately 10:15PM.

–James & Forrest Maxwell