Category: Video Assisted

Messier 43

Messier 43
Messier 43

[An excerpt from Dale Holt’s blog: Chippingdaleobservatory Blog ]
…I pushed onto the great Orion nebula, just intending to take a look but ended up once again trying to be artistic in a rendering of M43 the little brother to the much better known M42, to me this nebula is a ‘morsel’ about to be swallowed by the Angel fish that is M42 the great Orion Nebula. Putting dazzling M42 just out of the field to avoid its distraction one could view this nebula as a standalone and appreciate its form and the intricate darker regions and lanes that bisect it. When I showed my pastel sketch to friend Es Reid the next day, flatteringly he referred to it as like an ‘impressionist’s painting’ that will do for me 🙂

Messier 1

Messier 1
Messier 1

Hi
This is a sketch of M1 the crab nebula with my 10 inch F4.5 reflector viewed with a Watec 120N+ astro camera, the resulting live view was sketched from the monitor.
The Watec literally doubles the size of your scope so my 10 inch behaves like a 20 inch or slightly larger depending on the conditions.
The view was incredibly detailed and took about an hour to draw.
Cheers

Video Assisted Messier 66

Sketch of Messier 66

Messier 66
Sketch and Details by Dale Holt
Hover cursor over image to view the original negative sketch.

On the evening of Monday 15th I had meant to go after more elusive prey but as my telescope GOTO isn’t very accurate and I therefore I need to star hop from the park position to my quarry I couldn’t help but stop off at M66 (as I was passing that way 🙂 to see how it looked with the 20″ & Watec 120N camera.
The view was stunning so there I stopped & sketched, the sky deteriorated quickly dropping to around mag 2 by the time I had completed my sketch. I took a look at nearby NGC2628, impressive & huge it stretched the full width of my b&w monitor plus a little more and resembled an old ‘British Rail’ sandwich with the upper slice curling up and exposing the filling at each end 🙂 no sketch I knew the poor sky outside was hiding much detail so I will need to return on a clearer evening.

Warm regards, Dale

Telescope: 505mm F3.7 Newtonian
Watec 120N video camera + 0.5x focal reducer giving real time image on 14″ b&w TV monitor.
Sketch made with graphite pencil & charcoal onto white paper, blending stumps used. Drawing scanned & Inverted

Location Chippingdale Observatory, NE Hertfordshire, UK

Observer Dale Holt