Category: Inverted

A Crab in the Bull

Object Name M1 in Taurus
Object Type Supernova remnant
Location Budy Dłutowskie – small village in central Poland
Date 04.01.2011
Media graphite pencil, white paper, color invert
Telescope Meade SCT 8” f/10 with 40mm Willam Optics SWAN
Seeing 2/5
Transparency 3/5
NELM 5 mag

M1 – supernova remnant in Taurus constellation. It is quite easy to observe it on the dark sky through the 8 inch telescope or “stronger”. Hovever if you want to see details inside of this object you will need “half meter piece of glass” or more.
In 8” we can observe only small, circle shape mist.

Clear sky
Łukasz

Small Mist Above the Horse Head

Short description:

Object Name M78 in Orion
Object Type Reflection nebula
Location Budy Dłutowskie – small village in central Poland
Date 04.01.2011
Media graphite pencil, white paper, color invert
Telescope Meade SCT 8” f/10 with 40mm Willam Optics SWAN
Seeing 3/5
Transparency 3/5
NELM 4,5 mag

When we think or talk about Orion constelation, we usually mention M42, Horsehead nebula or Flame nebula.
And we forgot about small mist above horsehead – M78.

You can observe it in 15×70 bino (maybe in 10×50 too but I haven’t tried) – it looks like small fog around two small central stars.
In 8” telescope you can observe the “bell” shape of this nebula which is little brighter on the edge.
Soon I will look at it through the 13” Newtonian and I expect quite impressive view.

Clear sky
Łukasz

Happy Ending

Object Name: Sombrero Galaxy
Object Type: Galaxy
Location: Itajobi, SP, Brazil
Date: 31/12/2010 – 07h00min UT
Media: 2B 0.5mm graphite pencil on white paper, scanned, inverted then edited colors

Telescope: newtonian 180mm f/D=6 dob mount
Eyepieces: SuperPlossl 32mm; Plossl 10mm; SuperPlossl 6mm
Seeing: 4/5 (good)
Fair wind, temperature around 20ºC, no clouds in the sky.

I observed this galaxy for about two hours that night. In the beginning, the sky was dark but Sombrero was low in the sky. By the end of the observation, Sombrero was high, however the sky was not so dark. An astonishing gibbous moon was rising, in conjunction wiht Venus, separated about 8º. I was in my backyard, not the perfect place because it’s downtown, so the dark line on the galaxy could be seen only using averted vision. It was really hard to see any detail due to the fair contrast between the galaxy and the dark blue sky. Even facing that troubles, it was a special night, because I had seen Sombrero Galaxy just once before, and hadn’t sketched it. That’s a great way to end the year, with a new sketch. I hope you enjoy it. I’ll sketch this galaxy from a dark place someday, to see the difference.
That night I could see also two shooting stars, as bright as brief. One across Centaurus and the other close to the zenith, both were golden.

Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

Small Treasure of Auriga

Object Name M37 in Auriga
Object Type Open Cluster
Location Budy Dłutowskie – small village in central Poland
Date 04.01.2011
Media graphite pencil, white paper, color invert
Telescope Meade SCT 8” f/10 with 40mm Willam Optics SWAN
Seeing 3/5
Transparency 3/5
NELM 4,5 mag

We didn’t have much good weather in Poland last time.
Yesterday we had only 2-3 hours of quite nice sky and I used this time to made this sketch.

Cluster was clearly visible from the edge to center. Background of object was little lighter than surroundings.
Around cluster there was little number of stars (only brightest) because of low transparence and near lights dispersed in the fog.

Clear sky
Łukasz

Escorted Jupiter

Object Name: Jupiter
Object Type: planet
Location: Itajobi, SP, Brazil
Date: 29/12/2010 – 23h20min U.T.
Media: 0.5mm 2B graphite pencil, white paper, scanned then colours edited with Nero PhotoSnap Viewer

Telescope: reflector 180mm (7.1″) f/D=6 (f=1080mm) dob mounted
Eyepieces: Super Plossl 32mm; Plossl 10mm; Super Plossl 6mm
Three-element 2.5x Barlow (not a good option that night)
Turbulence: 3/5 (regular)
A fair wind lasted all night long. It was a hot summer, cloudless night. In the sketch, aligned, from left to right: Europa, Jupiter, Io, Ganimedes and Callisto. A star can be seen in the bottom (20 Psc), really similar to the Galilean Moons. Another star, very faint, tried to show some contrast over the glow of the planet. Few minutes later, Jupiter hide behind my house, escorted by its moons and the stars. So that’s what I saw that night, from my backyard, in a small town, struggling against the sodium lights of the city: a beautiful Jupiter, surrounded by its 4 greatest moons, and two stars. I tried all combinations of lenses, however the 10mm (without the barlow) produced the best image. I hope you enjoy it, new sketches of a nebulae, a galaxy and Saturn are coming soon.

P.S. If you are going to comment, please say to my friend Camila that my sketches aren’t that bad. Thank’s!

Clear skies to everybody, and a happy new year,
Rodrigo Pasiani Costa.

Head of the Seagull Nebula

Van den Berg 93
aka Sh2-292, RCW 2, Gum 1, the head of the Seagull nebula
emission and reflexion nebula
20’ x 20’ in Monoceros

Date of observation:

14 déc. 2010 02:58 UT

Length of observation:

30 min

Object position:

Alt: 30.1°, Az: 210.5°

Weather conditions:

V0/R10kmh t-4.6° hu56%

Observation conditions:

SQMZ 21.25(MW) SQML 21.11 (?!), FWMH 3.5″, mvl(UMi) 6.4 VI2, 6.6 VI4, T0.5 P1 S5/100 !

Observing site:

Observatoire des Baronnies Provençales (Southern French Alps)

Instrument:

TN 635 Dobson Obsession

Main eyepiece:

Televue Panoptic 24mm / Deepsky filter

Magnification:

130x

Observing notes:
Although my SQM and SQML gave rather low values, the sky was remarquably transparent. Light pollution is totally absent from the Observatoire des Baronnies Provençales, overall excellent conditions to observe a large and faint target.
vdB 93 is an interesting nebula because of its dark lanes from each part of its lighting star. With patience, they can be analysed and sketched with a lot of details.
Numerous stars are scattered in the halo, which presents a beautiful light blue, enhanced by the Deepsky filter.

Clear skies

Bertrand

Pair of Open Clusters

Name: M35 and NGC 2158
Type: Pair of open clusters
Constellation: Gemini
Location: Negev desert, southern Israel
Date: 2-3/12/2010 , 03:30
Media: Graphite pencils, white paper, red light. Scanned and processed in Photoshop
Equipment: 203 mm F/5 Orion skyview pro Newtonian, 13mm Vixen LVW eyepiece (77X).

M35 is a bright, beautiful open cluster. It can easily be spotted with a naked eye under right conditions. The cluster isn’t very uniform, and features an interesting arc of stars, with a yellowish bright star on it’s end.
Through a moderate telescope M35’s tiny neighbour can be spotted – NGC 2158, which is a small, tight, faint open cluster (once thought to be globular).

Aristarchus and Vallis Schroteri

Object Name: Aristarchus and Vallis Schroteri
Object Type: Lunar Crater
Location: Bristol, UK
Date: 18th Dec 2010
Media (graphite pencil sketch at the scope and then digitized using graphics tablet and Photoshop)

I usually sketch in some detail at the scope (mainly HB and 2B). I then scanned the result into Photoshop and use a Bamboo Pen graphics tablet to remaster the sketch. The final sketch was then “blurred” a touch to simulate the actual view which is never as sharp as I would like to see!)

Observational date: I use a Nexstar 8SE teamed with a Hyperion 8-24 mm zoom. Most of the sketch was at the 16mm stop with occassional use of Barlow and was drawn in moderate seeing conditions. The moon was 13 days old.
I could see the main circular formation with the hint of rays in SE. The crater had high walls although I could not see the terraces. The flat floor had a smallish central mountain. Herodotus was prominent to the W. Vallis Schroteri could be seen N of Herodotus by a craterlet called ‘the Head of Cobra’. The valley ran towards N then W.
Chris Lee