Plato and Archimedes craters
Lunar craters
Eastbourne, UK
28th Aug 2013, 01:15 – 03:15 UT. Temperature 12C
Meade LX90 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with 26mm super Plossl eyepiece, 77x
White and black pastel on Daler Rowney Canford black paper
As a little summer holiday project I made a pledge to myself to sketch lunar craters at every opportunity, casually assuming that the usual poor British summer weather would make this an easy commitment to keep. However, I have been kept busy over the last couple of weeks!
I have been inspired by the quality of the sketches on your website and as you can see I am still some way off those standards; however, I am pleased to see (I think) some improvement in my efforts. I sketched this at the eyepiece using the pastels and just my finger as a blending tool.
Craters Stofler and Faraday Move cursor over image to view labels.
There are some very fine craters to be found in the lunar highlands among the look-alike craters there. Two that I have included in this sketch are craters Stofler (125 km.) and Faraday (70 km.). Many of the craters in the region have large smooth regions on their floors. The remains of the eastern wall of Stofler form a rampart between older Stofler and Faraday and can be seen near Stofler’s center. The Faraday impact moved the east wall like an enormous excavator. On the south rim of Faraday sit two more overlapping craters, Stofler P (33 km.) and Faraday C (30 km.). That makes 4 fairly large overlapping craters in a small lunar region and many, many more small ones beyond resolution.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 6”x 11”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils, white pearl eraser and blending stumps.
Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 08-13-2013 00:10 – 01:50 UT
Temperature: 15°C (60°F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 356.1°
Lunation: 6.9 days
Illumination: 43.3 %
Phase: 97.7°
Frank McCabe
NGC 1325 Spiral Galaxy in Eridanus
Spiral Galaxy
Location: Rush Valley, Utah
December 26th, 2011
Pastel on Black Paper, white pencil for the stars
Conditions on December 26th, 2011 made it so that my friend Mat and I went observing for the night in the West Desert of Utah. Conditions were clear, cold, about 15 degrees F at the time. While we were setting up there was a wonderful Sun Dog in the Western Sky which we took as a good omen and sure enough, we had a wonderful evening. I would rate the sky at an Antoniadi II this night when I sketched this object. I used my Orion XX14i, a 14 inch truss dob, a 27mm Panoptic as a finder and a 10mm Pentax XW to sketch the object. This galaxy has a very stellar nucleus with a bright inner core that is surrounded by diffusion. Nice star to the west of the galaxy and the southwest end of the galaxy tappers and thus had more detail located there. Not a particularly well known or observed galaxy, but one in the Eridanus cluster and worthy of a look if one is there. Who says winter isn’t galaxy season?
PCW Memorial Observatory, Texas – Erika Rix www.pcwobservatory.com
Temp: 17.2°-27.8C, calm-N 5mph, clear.
Seeing: Wilson 4.8-4.6, Transparency: 5/6, 50x.
Maxscope DS 60mm H-alpha, LXD75, Baader Planetarium Hyperion 8-24mm Mark III.
Sketches created at the eyepiece with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang color pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.
As of this morning, there were 8 active regions on the Sun. Plage and filaments scattered over three quarters of the solar disk with sunspots popping in and out of view crisply as it moved in and out of the scope’s sweet spot. A large diffuse quiet region filament, similar to the one observed on May 6, 2012, was to the SE quadrant reaching out over the limb. Two large bright prominences were located at PA 70 and 115 with several smaller ones scattered around the limb. The prom at 70 degrees had very faint wisps of structure reaching between the three brightest regions.
I had started to draw the full solar disk when a faint pair of prominences to the NW caught my eye. I had accidentally kicked the adaptor that was plugged into my power pack and the mount turned off, allowing the disk to drift across my field of view. When this happened, a huge billow of plasma floated above the limb. It was attached by very slender lines of plasma to the thick fainter prom at the 315 degrees position angle. It had the appearance of a large balloon being blown to the south while tethered to the ground. Tossing my larger sketchpad to the side, I grabbed the smaller pad and quickly sketched this prom. As the course this morning’s observation went on, the billowed top of the prominence changed quite dramatically. I almost expected it to either break free or collapse on itself before my session ended but by the time I completed the full disk sketch, it was still there.
The prominences near 1476 were dense and compact. The plage was very brightly formed as several slender lines within that active region. The main sunspot in 1476 was very easy to spot in h-alpha although the ARFs were very thin and few.
1479 is reminiscent of 1476 several days ago, although the preceding spot standing alone is on the opposite end. Of course, another difference that the sunspots in 1479 are smaller. They may develop more as the days go on. Here’s hoping for beautiful weather so we can keep an eye on it.
Solar Prominence – May 16, 2012, 1345 UT – 70° PAH-Alpha Sun – May 16, 2012, 1550 UT
Crater Cichus (41 km.) sits on the remains of the high rim of Mare Nubium in one of the few places where the edge of this mare is clearly visible. Resting high on the rim of Cichus is small crater Cichus C (11 km.). This region is a very interesting piece of lunar real estate which includes craters young, old, concentric ringed, buried ghosts, grabens like the one in this sketch to the north called Rima Hesiodus and domes like Kies Pi just beyond the sketch area. To the west of crater Cichus is a portion of Palus Epidemiarum.
The seeing was slightly less than average but you could wait for intervals of better seeing which arrived now and again.
A fun observation and relaxing sketch with mosquito repellent applied.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x 12”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils, white pearl eraser and blending stumps.
Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 07-18-2013 02:05-03:50 UT
Temperature: 31°C (88°F)
Hazy, calm, humid
Seeing: mostly Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 27.3°
Lunation: 9.5 days
Illumination: 67.8 %
Frank McCabe
This time I send you an old but interesting observation of a break-up of
nucleus in three parts. This was the bright and splended comet West (1976).
In 50x magn., I could only see a streak in the bright coma, but with power of
166x, I could see the splitting parts of 7. to 8. mag.. Info on the sketch.
I look foreward to comet ISON, but I hope it will survive the perihel!!
location: Trondheim, Norway.
I used watercolor crayons on black paper.
Best wishes and clear sky from Per-Jonny Bremseth.
Hello, I present to you my sketch of that beautiful Open Cluster. I hope you like it…
Location: Belchatow, Poland
Time: 3:30-4:00 UT, 25.07.2012
Equipment: Sky Watcher 200/1000, Antares W70 25mm
Power: 40X (variable field of view)
Media: Watercolor crayon on black paper
Seeing: Antoniadi IV
DS Maxscope 60mm h-alpha, LXD75, Baader Planetarium Hyperion 8-24mm Mark III
Temp: 86 F (30 C), winds SE 5 mph, lightly scattered, 37% H
Seeing: Wilson 4.7-4, Transparency: 4/6, 50x, Alt: 72.7, Az: 175.3
Sketch created at the eyepiece with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ pencil and crayon, and white color pencil.
NOAA 11543 had very bright plage. The sunspots within it weren’t quite as pronounced as the other day. There was a very large filament going east to west in the SE quadrant of the solar disk. More plage located to the SW and the E-NE quadrants.
The brightest, largest prominence that I spotted was located on the NW limb and resembled two dancers joined by their outreached hands with their other hands stretched out behind them. More prominences were scattered about the limb, but to the SW, a very short, bright set of prominences were apparent.
I have not sketched Saturn this go around until now because of extremely poor weather so far this year. On Wednesday evening the atmosphere cooperated and I had a scope outside cooling down. I did not have access to any Saturn templates because of a computer crash. So I took out my old mechanical drawing equipment and made an ellipse of the approximate eccentricity of Saturn’s rings and sketched from there. It’s a bit crude but reasonably close to the view. Seeing was good and the atmosphere was transparent. I was able to see Mimas but it was just beyond the way I framed the sketch for posting. Enceladus was about 12th magnitude.
Sketching:
Date: 06/20/2013, 01:45 – 02:45 UT
Sky Conditions: Partly cloudy
Transparency: 3/5
Seeing: Pickering 7/10
For sketching I used 10” x 12” Canson black paper, white, gray, charcoal and black pastel pencils, powdered Conte’ crayons, white Pearl eraser, blending stumps.
Equipment: 18” f/4.95 Dobsonian with a 9mm ortho eyepiece for 250 x.
Neodymium filter and single polarizing filter
Frank McCabe
