This afternoon, I saw a huge prominence lift-off on the sout western limb. I was lucky enough not only to view it but also to sketch it. It all happened so fast, I was amazed by the whole phenomenon!
When: Saturday 19 March 2011
Object name: Prominence SW of the sun’s limb
Location: Arnhem/Holland
Optics: Lunt 60 PT single stack
Eyepiece: 10 mm Pentax XW barlowed with Baader Abbe Zeis 2x
Media: Pastel red Conté a Paris no 3 on Black paper
Seeing : Great
Sketch by: Joost Becker
2011 03 08, 1703 UT – 1945 UT
Solar h-alpha, NOAAs 11164, 11165, 11166, 11169, prominence sequence 240 pa (11165)
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix
www.pcwobservatory.com
Temp: 16.8°C, Humidity 34%, SE winds 8mph
Seeing: Wilson 3.5 w/moments of 1, Transparency: 1-2/6
Alt: 44.5°- 36.4°, Az: 168.1°- 221.1°
DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell
H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.
It was a nice surprise to see the Sun out and the thin clouds scattered enough for a solar session, especially with 4 active regions present. I didn’t pull out a white light filter. It certainly would have made a great comparison to the h-alpha views with all the sunspots scattered about. The fibrils in NOAA 11166 were outstanding and plentiful, reaching out through plage in wide arcs. 11164 looked etched near the limb with stark contrast between the filaments and plage.
It was 11165 that kept most of my attention today with its area of prominence changing so rapidly that I’m fairly certain portions of it erupted and then collapsed on itself. Two times sections had broken free and floated off. During those times, a sketch was completed every 5-10 minutes.
I would have liked to have stayed out for at least a few more hours, but the transparency became too horrendous to pull detail out of the prominences and full overcast skies was soon to follow.
Object Name: M45 (Pleiades)
Object Type:Open Cluster
Location: Iran,Tehran
Date: Jan 13, 2011
Media: Soft Pastels on Black Fabriano paper
It’s an artistic sketch of Pleiades that I drew it according to a photo of this open cluster
The Large Magellanic Cloud
Dorado/Mensa
01/02/11
Ilford NSW Australia
Televue 76mm Apo refractor
Field: 317′
Magnification: 31x
Sky quality meter reading: 21:77
Black Canford paper
White pen
White pencil
Paint brush
White pastel chalk
White pastel pencil
If there is ever an excuse to expound the virtues of a fine quality rich field refractor, then a wide field panorama of the LMC would have to be it.
I have had a number of people just “blown away” by the experience of virtually capturing the entire vista of this magnificent dwarf galaxy in the one field that
I decided whenever the time was right, I will have to attempt a sketch.
The 31mm Nagler I used for this effort was almost as big as the telescope, but the view it gives is a truly noble experience.
At the top of the sketch and very conspicuous is the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070).
The rest of the field is strewn with a plethora open clusters and nebulosity to numerous to mention here.
The sketch took quite some time to complete and was very tedious.
However it can never replace the actual visual splendor of this object.
The Large Magellanic Cloud was first mentioned in literature as far back as 964AD.
Amerigo Vespucci recorded observations of it in 1503-04.
Ferdinand Magellan during his voyage in 1519 noted it, and it now bears his name.
The LMC was home to supernova 1987A, the only naked eye supernova visible for over 400 years.
Scott Mellish
Craters Kepler and Encke At nearly 11 days into the current lunation sunrise has just finished for the rim of crater Kepler. Even during this early morning view, some of the brightest rays of this crater were seen radiating eastward from the ramparts on that side. Kepler is a 31 kilometer diameter complex crater with a low central peak and a flat debris covered floor from inner wall slumping. As I saw it during the time of this sketch, the floor was in complete darkness and had the perception of great depth. Crater Kepler lies between the Oceanus Procellarum and the Mare Insularum both of which consist of dark surface lavas.
The Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli named Crater Kepler about 28 years after the death of Johannes Kepler. He also named Crater Tycho after Tycho Brahe, the man with the accurate data measurements that helped make Kepler famous for his three laws of planetary motion.
I was hoping to include Rima Milichius in this sketch but the seeing was so poor I never saw a hint of it even at its widest part that would have been located in the lower left corner of the sketch. The other crater captured in this sketch is 1 kilometer smaller in diameter and 3 times older than Kepler. This is crater Encke named after 19th century German astronomer Johann Franz Encke. The rubble-covered floor of this crater was well illuminated because of its greater distance from the terminator and much shallower depth.
Sketching and Equipment:
For this sketch, I used black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9” x 12”, white and
black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps.
Telesccope: 13.1 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece (222x) riding on an equatorial platform
Date: 2-14-2011, 00:30-02:00 UT
Temperature: 4° C (40° F)
Partly cloudy, very windy
Seeing: Very poor – Antoniadi IV-V
Colongitude 39.8 °
Lunation 10.9 days
Illumination 96.7 %
Frank McCabe
Hi!
Messier 82 (the Cigar) is the smaller member of the Bode’s Galaxy pair.
About 600 million years ago a Cigar ‘s brother (M81 Galaxy) destroyed
regularity of the galactic-structure, by his strong gravity
Due to their proximity a millions of stars explode as supernovae,
ejecting a huge quantity of matter in the tens of thousands light years
away,
Las night I saw this deformed galaxy with magnification 165 x. The Cigar
like high power and need a good seeing and contrast. So I used 11
“Schmidt – Cassegrain on CGEM mount and the Sky-watcher eyepiece.
This sketch represent more than 40 minutes of staring at the white line
in the dark.
Yours sincerely Robert
Object Name: The Big Cigar
Object Type (Galaxy)
Location (Oborniki, suburbia, Poland)
Date (08-02-2011)
Equipment: 11” Schmidt – Cassegrain on CGEM, SWA SW 17mm
Autor: Ignisdei (Robert Twarogal)
NGC 2808
Globular Cluster
Carina
30/01/11
Ilford NSW Australia
56cm f5 Dobsonian telescope
Field: 17′
Magnification: 354x
Sky quality meter reading: 21:62
Black Canford paper
White pen
White pastel pencil
White pastel chalk
White oil pencil
Paint brush
This sublime globular cluster proved to be a difficult object to sketch.
I almost threw in the towel on this one, as it was so dense with innumerable stars that it was just not turning out as planned.
Then I thought so what if a few stars are miss-plotted, a sketch of a deep sky object is never 100% perfect otherwise you may just as well copy it off an image.
3½ hours at the eyepiece later and I was satisfied enough to call it a day on this one.
NGC 2808 was discovered by James Dunlop in 1826.
It is one of the Milky Way’s most massive clusters and is estimated to be around 12.5 billion years old.
Scott Mellish
Subject: Schickard
location : Bure-sur-Yvette (FRANCE)
Date : 16/01/2011
media : white pastel, black paper, white pencil
Good seeing on this night permiss me to growth 300x with my mak 127 to see very great shadow.
NGC 2294/2291/2289/2288/2290
Galaxies
Gemini
12/12/10
56cm f5 dosonian telescope
Field: 17′
Magnification: 354x
Sky Quality Meter reading: 21:58
Black Canford paper
White pen
White pencil
White oil pencil
White pastel chalk
Paint brush
Blending stump
This was quite a nice collection of galaxies in Gemini that viewed well in the 56cm dob.
The brightest member of this group is NGC 2294, as is quite evident in the sketch.
Descending to the right is NGC 2291 a diffuse mag 14.0 galaxy, followed directly below about 6′ by two
quite faint and small galaxies NGC 2289/2288 which are only some 2′ apart.
The last object in this group is NGC 2290 another diffuse mag 14.0 galaxy about 1.0′ x 1.0′ in size.
This was a fairly faint group, but they were not overly challenging from a dark sky site.
I do not know whether any of these galaxies are in interaction, but looking at some DSS images of this
group it seems unlikely.
Scott Mellish
Sketch of Mons Rümker
On this rather fine fall night, with the sunrise shadow moving across Sinus Roris, yet not quite reaching crater Harding, I was able to see and sketch the volcanic mound feature known as Mons Rümker, named after German astronomer Karl L. C. Rümker. This hummocky volcanic multi-domed plateau is raised above the basaltic plain of northwestern Oceanus Procellarum just enough to make it stand out in grazing light.
In the late 19th and on into the 20th century, this feature was believed to be an old collapsed and battered crater. Today it is known to be the frozen remains of a once active cluster of lunar volcanoes arranged in an incomplete circular arching mound. This entire mound measures 70 kilometers across and was observed and sketched while the lighting was good enough to see nice relief from the flat surroundings.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: 400 series black Strathmore Artagain paper 9″ x 12″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils, Conte’ crayons, a blending stump, and plastic eraser. Brightness was decreased -1 and contrast increased +1 using my scanner for this sketch
Telescope: 13.1” f/ 6 Dobsonian with 6mm eyepiece (333x) on an equatorial tracking platform
Date: 11-19-2010 06:00 – 07:30 UT
The Moon was nearly 60° above the southern horizon
Temperature: -1°C (30°F)
Weather: mostly clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 65.1°
Lunation: 13.1 days
Illumination: 94.1%
Oak Forest, Illinois
Frank McCabe
