Category: Black Paper

Messier 77 (Cetus A)

Messier 77
Messier 77

M77 / NGC1068 / Cetus A
Constellation – Cetus
Spiral galaxy
Distance – 47MLy
Mag 8.9

Date – 10/12/12
Seeing – Antoniadi III
Transparency – Poor
SQM 21.45 (LM 6.3)
Location – Hartland Point UK
Media – White pastels on black paper.

Telescope – 16″ f/4.5
EP – 8mm Delos x236 TFoV 0.18˚

Sketch notes

Very small galaxy that improved with lots of magnification. Bright core makes it an easy find even with low mag EP’s.

High level cloud made the transparency poor making it very difficult to see any detail but I could just make out a couple spiral arms inside the halo of the galaxy.

Very nice object and will go back to under better conditions.

Rupes Recta at Sunrise

Rupes Recta
Rupes Recta

I set up to sketch Rupes Recta on the floor of Mare Nubium. From the eastern edge of Mare Nubium you can see the triplet craters, Thebit (57 km), A and L. Next moving westward is the Imbrian escarpment Rupes Recta , not a true wall in the usual sense but on one side standing more than 300 meters high at some locations and 114 km in length. The scarp face would be visible from the rim of young crater Birt’s (17 km) to the west of “straight wall” if you could get there. Touching the rim of Birt to the east is Birt A.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Canson paper (8” x 10”), white and black pastel pencils, assorted erasers, and blending stumps

Telescope: 13.1” f/6 Dobsonian working at 222X (9mm ocular)
Date: 11-22-2012 01:00-02:45 UT Temperature: 12°C (54°F)
Hazy, slightly breezy
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude 10.1 °
Lunation 8.1 days
Illumination 64.9%
Alt. 45°

Frank McCabe

NGC 40 – A Fine Planetary Nebula

NGC 40
NGC 40

Object Name: NGC40 (also Caldwell 2)
Object Type: Planetary Nebula in Constellation Cepheus
Observing Location: Sudelfeld, Bavaria, Germany
Date: 16. November 2012, 11:50 PM
Observer: Christian Rausch
Telescope: 12inch/F5 Dobson (Hofheim Instruments)
Used Filters: none
Power: 300x (Nagler 5mm)
Conditions: SQML = 21,45 mag/arcsec*2, seeing good, transparency very good, Temp. +3C, rel. humidity 40%
Media: Chalk pencil on black paper

The night from the 16. to the 17. of November was exceptional here in southern Bavaria. A very good transparency combined with good seeing conditions is very rare in our area. In addition the fog down in the valley damped the artificial lights.

It was a great night!

Best Regards
Christian

http://www.licht-stimmungen.de/

Black Sun

Black Sun
Black Sun

Hi all! I present to You a sketch made by a 9yo child, Her name is Wiktoria Janowska. I met Her at the Zelow Observatory a couple days ago. She’s very, very clever n lovely little woman. Well, sometimes her fantasy dominated over realism. She saw a lot of details, maybe a little too much 😀
I hope You like it 🙂

Wiktoria Janowska, 9yo
14.11.2012, 14:30-14:41UT
Zelow, Central Poland
White watercolor crayon on black paper
Coronado PST DS (with Lunt etalon filter)+ Baader Zoom MARK III

Best Wishes!
Wiktoria Janowska & Damian Kępiński (ASTROOKIE)

Monster Prominence

Solar Prominence - July 27, 2012
Solar Prominence - July 27, 2012

Object Name: Prominence
Object Type: Large plasma eruption on the solar surface
Location: Deventer, The Netherlands
Date: July 27, 2012
Media: White pastel pencil on black paper

This morning I aimed my 70mm solar telescope at the sun and I almost got blown away by what I saw. I GIANT prominence on the north eastern limb. I hovered above the surface like a huge dragon. I made a sketch with white pastels on black paper, color added and orientation-flip with Photoshop.

Clear skies!

Roel Weijenberg,
Deventer, The Netherlands
www.roelblog.nl

Craters Lansberg and Reinhold

Craters Lansberg and Reinhold
Craters Lansberg and Reinhold

Both of these craters look similar when their floors are in shadow as was the case when I viewed them. Lansberg (40 km) is a walled plain crater sitting where Mare Insularum meets south Imbrium. This old impact dates back to the Upper Imbrian and is near the center of my sketch. Reinhold (49 km) is a prominent lunar impact crater of the Eratosthenian period and is also on Mare Insularum. It is below Lansberg near the bottom center of the sketch which by direction is north as per the inverted Newtonian telescope view. At the top of the sketch (south) I was able to catch the Riphaeus Mountains receiving first light during this waxing gibbous phase.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Canson paper 9″x 10″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps. Sketch was scanned

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 242x
Date: 10-25-2012, 00:30 – 01:25 UT
Temperature: 16°C (60° F)
hazy, high clouds, calm
Seeing: average Antoniadi III
Transparency: poor
Colongitude: 29.0 °
Lunation: 9.52 days
Illumination: 79.0 %

Frank McCabe

A Conjunction with Some History

Conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran
Conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran

At the last day of October I sketched a beautiful conjunction between the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran. The building in the foreground was my holiday-resort (illuminated by a streetlight), a renovated farm from 1669. By chance: in the first months of 1669 Jupiter was also next to Aldebaran in the sky. So the first inhabitants could have witnessed a similar conjunction. To add some more history: the location was less than 10 km from Middelburg, the town where the telescope was invented!

Clear skies

Jef De Wit

Location: Biggekerke, Netherlands (51°29’ N 3°31’ E)
Date and time: 31 October 2012 around 19.30 UT
Equipment: naked eye
Medium: pastel pencils and soft pastels on black paper (A4), Jupiter and Aldebaran were brightened with Paint

NGC 246 – The Skull Nebula

NGC 246
NGC 246

Object Name: NGC246 – Skull Nebula
Object Type: Planetary Nebula (Cetus)
Observing Location: Sudelfeld, Bavaria, Germany
Date: 21. October 2012
Media: Chalk pencil on black paper
Observer: Christian Rausch
Telescope: 12inch / F5 Dobson (Hofheim Instruments)

Conditions:
– SQML = 21,3 mag/arcsec*2, seeing = good, Temp. +12C
– 167x (Nagler 13mm)

This time with the right annex….

Best Regards
Christian

http://www.licht-stimmungen.de/