Category: Inverted

Lost In Space

ISS Toolbag

The ISS Tool bag
Sketch and Details by Jef De Wit

On November 18 2008 Endeavor astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper lost her grip on a tool bag during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The tool bag cost $100,000 and its loss meant astronauts had to share the remaining tool bag for subsequent spacewalks. The bag weighs about 14 kg and measures only 50 x 40 x 20 cm. It contained two grease guns, a scraper tool, a large trash bag and a small debris bag.
On websites like www.heavens-above.com and www.calsky.com you can find the visible passes for your location. The maximum brightness of the tool bag is 4,8 mag. So in theory it can be a naked eye object. But in practice it turned out to be more difficult. I first tried to spot the tool bag with binoculars (7×50). After six failures I asked help on Cloudy Nights.
Armed with the good advice from a kind Neal and a little refractor I was more lucky on the first of July. The tool bag passed almost overhead at a distance of 280 km (in his 3534th turn around the Earth).
I was especially surprised by the speed of the satellite and there is no second chance. So I’m not sure that the sketched path is 100% correct (it differs a little bit from the calculated one). It was far more difficult to recall where the tool bag entered than where it left the FOV. It was also the first (and maybe the last) time I used a lath for an astro-sketch. The calculated brightness of the bag was 5,4 magnitudes. The bright star on the right border of the sketch (north) is Kappa Cygni. The two bright stars below (east) are Iota 1 and 2 Cygni.
When I was sketching some background stars there was at 0.57 UT an unexpected visitor. A bright (mag. 2,3) satellite passed the same FOV than the tool bag. Some research on CalSky revealed it was a cylindrical rocket-piece (IGS 3A H2A) that measured 13,5 by 2,5 meters. A nice extra!
Don’t wait too long to observe the tool bag, because in the future it will fall back to Earth. It is not expected that any components of the tool bag will reach the Earth´s surface. But maybe some beautiful morning you will find a grease gun in your backyard…

Clear skies
Jef De Wit

Object Name: ISS / Shuttle tool bag
Object Type: satellite
Location: Hove, Belgium (51°09’ north lat. 4°28’ east long.)
Date and time: 1 July 2009, 0.52 UT
Equipment: Meade ETX-70 (2,75 inch refractor)
Eyepiece: 35mm Celestron Ultima (FOV 4,4° and magnification 10x)
NELM: 4,2 mag.
Medium: graphite pencil HB/n°2, lath, printing paper, scanned and inverted, some cleaning up was made with Paint

Splinter in the Dragon

NGC 5907

NGC 5907, the Splinter Galaxy in Draco
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

NGC 5907 Splinter in the Dragon

When you live in a bright sky zone and can’t get away to a dark site, it may yet be worth your while to track down brighter galaxies if the transparency is good. This is what happened to me on Friday evening when I spent about 6 hours enjoying a warm dry summer night under the stars.
After a couple of hours of viewing bright galaxies, I remembered attempting to sketch NGC 5907 in late spring when clouds rolled in at put an end to observing. I returned to that edge–on galaxy on this evening and after getting as dark adapted as possible and moving the scope back and forth to stimulate averted vision, this is what I sketched. I did detect some irregular condensations of brightness in this galaxy.
This galaxy is about 39 million light years from us and although nearly edge on does not seem to have much of a central bulge. At low power it is a couple of fields of view to the east of the brighter lenticular galaxy NGC 5866 which is also nearly edge-on. NGC 5907 glows at magnitude 10.3 and is located at R.A. 15h 16′, Dec. +56° 20′. I need about 10 inches of aperture to just detect this galaxy against the sky background on a good night.
In 1788 William Herschel located and described this nebula [galaxy].

Sketching:

(NGC 5907)
Date and Time: 6-27-2009, 4:00-4:25 UT
Scope: 18” f/5 Dobsonian. 28mm, 24 mm eyepieces 82x, 95x
8”x12” white sketching paper, 2H, 4H graphite pencils,
blending stump, scanned and inverted
Seeing: Pickering 8/10
Transparency: Average 4.5/5
Faintest stars visible overhead 4.4
Temperature: 26°C (80°F)
Galaxy magnitude: 10.3
Distance: 39 mly
Location: R.A. 15h 16m
Dec. +56° 20′

Frank McCabe

Antares´s Neighborhood

Antares’s Neighborhood

Rho-Ophiuchi, Antares and M4
Sketch and Details by Leonor Ana Hernández

The view through the binocular was splendid, Antares highlighted with an intense orange and was surrounded by a diffuse cloud, visible with averted vision.

The field was rich, plenty of stars, I distinguished perfectly the cluster M4 as a round nebula of grey cotton. Rho Ophiuchi showed flirt in the upper zone with its three components forming the shape of Mickey Mouse… with a blue intense color. The nebula around Antares appeared to reach Rho Ophiuchi indirectly.

Site : Mazarambroz, Toledo (Spain)
Date : June 20, 2009
Time : 21.53 UT
Binoculars : Vixen 12×80
FOV: 4.2°
Sky brightness : 20.70 magnitudes per square arc second near zenith (SQM reading).
Orientation: N up, E left
Sketch made with graphyte pencil, difumino, on white paper. I scanned it and change to negative view. I added the color tone of the main stars.

Leonor Ana Hernández

In the Strings of the Lyre

M56

M56 (NGC 6779) in the constellation Lyra
Sketch and Details by Kiminori Ikebe

M56 (NGC 6779) Globular Cluster in Lyra

This globular is northwest of Albireo. It is a mid-size globular and fairly bright. It is grainy but even at 190x it is not resolved clearly. The center is triangular-shaped with even brightness. The outlying area is faint and diffuse. There are some faint stars further out, but it is not certain whether they are members of this globular.
There is a double star north of the center. The faint outlying area is extensive in the north but almost no extension is detected in the south. However, there is a string of stars forming an arch in the south.

Difficulty level 3
Date of observation: 2000/08/28 00:47
Observing site

Galaxy On Edge

NGC 4244

Edge on galaxy NGC 4244
Sketch and Details by Ferenc Lovró

Edge-On Galaxy: NGC 4244 ( C26)

This is a large edge-on spiral with intermediate brightness, highly elongated in the NNE-SSW directions near the famous double, Cor Caroli in Canes Venatici. It does not show much detail like arms or dense spots, however its NNE side looks a little bit brighter and wider, which makes the entire galaxy look a bit asymmetrical. I estimate its average brightness at 12 magnitudes maximum, with an apparent size of 13′ x 2′.

Date/Time: 2009.05.17 : 21:15 UT
Equipment: 12″ f/5 Newtonian working at 100x
FOV 33′: Seeing: 6/10: Transparency 3/5
Coordinates: R.A. 12h 48m; Dec. +37° 45′

Spiraling into the Whirlpool

M51

M51 (NGC 5194 and 5195), The Whirlpool Galaxy
Sketch and Details by Janusz Krysiak

Object Name:M 51
Object Type:Galaxy
Location:Pyrnik(Poland)
Date:18.04.2009

medium: pencil, white paper
equipment: Newton 300/1500
magnification: 68x

Hi,
Under a dark sky you may see the spiral galaxy structure. I made this
sketch on 18.04.2009 in Pyrnik, Poland.

Janusz Krysiak

Raining Suculae

Hyades

Hyades Open Cluster, Melotte-25
Sketch and Details by Math Heijen

On december 27th 2008 I observed the Hyades with my 12×60 Celestron binoculars, mounted on the SkyWindow. The field of view (FOV) that these binoculars provide is about 5 degrees (300′) and the Hyades are just a little to wide, to fit into FOV. But although I didn’t see the whole cluster in one FOV, the first impression of this cluster was simply stunning. The brilliant deep orange Aldebaran, which actually isn’t a member of the Hyades but a foreground star, dominates the field of view, together with three bright yellow companions. These are three of the four yellow giants of the Hyades: Delta, Gamma, and Theta-1. The fourth is Epsilon (which again didn’t fit in the same FOV). There were many different chains of stars and small asterisms (triangles and other shapes) visible. The northern and southern half’s of the cluster seemed to be more or less divided by a dark empty zone, with almost no stars.

Beside Aldebaran and the three yellow stars, there were two other stars that drew my attention. First of all the brilliant white Theta-2 Tauri, with magnitude 3.3 the brightest star, the Lucida of the Hyades. It makes a beautiful double with the Theta-1, one of the yellow giants. To the south of this nice couple I detected the other prominent star, the reddish M-type variable V1146 (or 84 Tauri). In total I counted about between 75 and 85 stars, but I’m sure with my 300mm Dobson I could double or triple that number easily. According to Archinal and Hynes (Star Clusters, Willmann and Bell) the Hyades contain about 380 stars. This makes it a rich cluster. I could not detect any nebulosity of unresolved stars or of any other kind.

This sketch was made with led-pencil on white paper and later processed in Photoshop. The technique used I learned from Jeremy Perez’s website. If you want to learn more about this object or see a few more sketches of open clusters and double stars, please feel free to visit my website at http://www.starobserver.eu

Clear Skies!

Math Heijen

Netherlands

Revealing the Veil

The Veil Nebula

The Veil Nebula (NGC 6960)
Sketch and Details by Dan Israël

Hello,

I made this sketch in a small hamlet in Aubrac, south of France, altitude 1100m, with average transparency and no moon. I used a 80mm refractor at 30x magnification
and an OIII filter. The sketch was made on the spot with graphite pencil on white Canson paper. Some minor improvements were made later in the daylight (shading, shape of stars).

Object Name NGC 6960 (Veil Nebula)
Object Type supernova remnant
Location Aubrac, France
Date August 2007

The Veil Nebula processed

Computer processed Veil Nebula (NGC 6960)
Computer Sketch by Dan Israël

PS: this version with software processing is a little bit more realistic (but less authentic).

regards,

Dan

Taking Aim at the Wild Duck Cluster

The Wild Duck Cluster

The Wild Duck Cluster (NGC 6705)
Sketch by Janis Romer, text by Frank McCabe

The Wild Duck Cluster (NGC 6705)

Messier 11 or the wild duck open cluster as it is frequently called is a dense open cluster in the constellation of Scutum. A portion of this cluster is reminiscent of a flock of ducks flying in classic “V” formation. There are nearly 3,000 suns in this cluster, including many giants of all classes. The cluster is estimated to be 250 million years old and like most galactic cluster lies in the plane of the Milky Way.
This cluster was discovered by Gottfried Kirch in 1681 and it was added to Charles Messier’s famous catalog in 1764.
This sketch was made using a Criterion 8” f/8 Newtonian reflector telescope

M 11 (NGC 6705)
Visual mag. 6
Aprox. Distance: 5 kly
Apparent Size: 13 arc min.
RA 18h 51m
Dec – 6° 16′