Media Combinations – Page 31 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

The Makings of a Coronal Mass Ejection

Sun – Featuring NOAA 10987, 10988, 10989
Sketches and Commentary by Erika Rix

2008 March 26, 1335ST – 1452ST (1735UT – 1852UT)
Solar H-alpha and White Light
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio, USA, Lat: 40.01 / Long: -81.56
Erika Rix

Temp: 57.0 °F / 13.9 °C
Winds: West 18 mph gusting to 25 mph
Humidity: 33%
Seeing: 5/6
Transparency: 2/6
Alt: 50.4 Az: 157.5

Equipment:
Internally double stacked Maxscope 60mm, LXD75, 40mm ProOptic Plossl, 21-7mm Zhumell
ETX70 AT, tilt plate, 8mm Televue Plossl

Sketch Media:
H-alpha – Black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ and Prang pencils, white vinyl eraser.
Added –5 brightness, +30 contrast after scanning in color at 300 dpi. Tilting Sun program used for digital Sun insert.

White Light – white copy paper, #2 pencil, .5mm mechanical pencil, photographed sketch instead of scanning for better contrast.

It was said that today NOAA 10989 produced an M2-class eruption causing a CME. I have to say that each of the three active regions had very bright plage seeming to curve around the dark specks of sunspots within each region. It’s not often I get such a great view of the sunspots themselves in h-alpha, but today 10988 had the largest umbral area and they all had one or two smaller dark spots. I could hardly wait to pull out the ETX70 with a white light filter to see the sunspots themselves in much greater detail.

Prom activity was very modest. After 3-4 strolls around the limb tweaking the Etalon, 6 areas of very small prominences came to view. The filaments on the disk were showy, especially the large blotchy one to the south of 10988.

With the white light filter, facula was clearly viewable around 10989, reaching out in several directions. Penumbrae were seen in most of the sunspots. I had hoped to increase magnification for a closer view, but with transparency becoming worse, as well as viewing in white light in the front yard rather then in the protection of the observatory, the white light view was already too soft. Increasing magnification would have made it impossible.

Pythagoras Complex

Pythagoras and Environs
Sketch and Commentary by Richard Handy

Pythagoras of Eratosthenian age, is a large 130 km complex crater perched high in the northwestern quadrant above Mare Frigoris and very close to the Moon’s limb. If you have a Rukl Atlas you’ll see this region on plate 2.

Here are the sketch details:

Feature: Pythagoras and environs
Time: 6:30 UT to 8:30 UT
Lunation: 14.04 days Phase: 17.1 deg. Colongitude (geocentric): 77.3 deg.
Illumination: 97.8% Libration in Latitude: +5 deg. 41 min. Libration in Longitude: -4 deg. 28 min.
Seeing: Antoniadi II-III Weather: clear, calm.
Telescope: 12″ SCT Focal ratio: f/16 (1.6X nose piece on binoviewer)
Binoviewer: W.O. Bino-P Eyepieces 12.4 mm Meade 4000 series plossls
Magnification: 393X
Sketch medium: White and black Conte’ crayon and White Crayola chalk on black Strathmore paper.
Sketch size: 18″ x 24″

The Sun in Stitches

Sun in H-Alpha
By Erika Rix

2008 March 23, 1437ST – 1530ST (1837UT – 1930UT)
Solar H-alpha
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio, USA, Lat: 40.01 / Long: -81.56
Erika Rix

Temp: 39.0 °F / 3.9 °C
Winds: variable at 3.5mph, light cirrus and then scattered toward the end of session
Humidity: 46%
Seeing: 5/6
Transparency: 4/6 decreasing to 1/6
Alt: 51.2 Az: 187.0

Equipment:
Internally double stacked Maxscope 60mm, LXD75, 40mm ProOptic Plossl, 21-7mm Zhumell,

The new active region on the eastern limb was the first thing I noticed with the 40mm eyepiece. Dropping down to 7mm and adjusting the Etalon made this area rich with details. The seeing today was wonderful allowing higher magnification. A thick clumpy filament reached all the way to the limb, almost coming to a point before reaching out into the darkness of space for a very bright, flattened prominence reaching northward. The view was so three dimensional in appearance that it almost felt like you could reach in with your finger through the eyepiece and hook underneath the filament to pull it towards you. There were many tiny spicules on this eastern limb.

About 30 degrees inward from the East were two bright plage, separated only by a thin darkened line. I didn’t notice a sunspot within it in h-alpha and didn’t take the time to pull out my white light filter rig for a better look. The eye-catching view was when I increased the contrast to show a network of what I believe to be fibrils extending out from a thin filament that was running East to West. The fibrils seemed to extend almost north to south and the whole area looked like an incision with sutures. This area was just south, almost touching the plage and I wouldn’t have noticed it at all had I not tweaked the Etalon for more details to be pulled out.

Going towards the eastern limb, there was a longer area of plage that almost resembled the lunar crater Schiller, one giant footprint on the solar surface.

Although the eastern hemisphere was full of proms, mainly small vivid ones with a few brighter, large ones, there was a gem at the NE limb that was barely visible. I actually skipped over it completely the first time scrolling around the limb. When I moved the FOV, however, I detected a very large faint blotch hovering over the limb. After adjusting the Etalon, zooming in and out, I finally was able to make out this very fibrous prominence. It appeared to only be connected to the limb with one very narrow stalk, and at the beginning of the session, jutted dramatically to the North. Later, when I did a close up sketch of this prom, it actually spread out to the either side with almost a flat top. Truth be told, it reminded me of a clown’s hairdo.

When my session ended, I stood up against the drop down southern wall of the observatory to finish my cup of tea, admiring the countryside and the warmth on my back. Signs of spring are finally here, I thought to myself afterwards as I walked back up the stone steps to the house in my green and yellow flowered rubber gardening shoes, carrying my empty cup and sketchpad.

A Ring in the Bouquet

M46 (NGC 2437) and NGC 2438
By Kiminori Ikebe

From Mr. Ikebe’s observing notes:

M46 (NGC 2437) Pup open cluster Difficulty level 1

NGC 2438 Pup planetary nebula Difficulty level 3

Date of observation: 1998/11/21 03:29
Observing site: Hoshinomura
Transparency/seeing/sky darkness: 1/4/3
Instruments: 32cm Dobsonian with Er32 at 50x
Width of field: 1 degree

This is a large and bright open cluster. Even at 50x it is almost completely resolved. This fine cluster is filled with numerous pin-points of faint stars and very difficult to draw. This sketch shows it as nebulosity. There are also many bright stars embedded in this cluster. The neighboring M47 makes a good contrast with M46. M47 has fewer stars with unequal brightness. M46 presents itself as a dainty cluster while M47 shows its coarseness. Another similarly contrasting pair is NGC 2451 and NGC 2477 in Puppis. They are more contrasting than the M46 and M47 pair.

At this magnification the planetary nebula NGC 2438 is clearly seen. Its image overlapping with the open cluster is mysterious and unreal. It is rather large as planetary nebulae go. Switching to high powers a ring structure becomes clearer. This nebula is interesting by itself but it is usually viewed in association with M46 playing second fiddle to it.

(Mr. Ikebe’s sketch gallery can be found here: Visual Observation of Deep Sky Objects)

NOTE TO OUR VISITORS: Please accept my apologies for the lapse in updates for the last three days. I returned from a trip out of town to hear that Rich Handy has come down with pneumonia. He is getting some much needed rest and antibiotics and sounds like he is slowly getting better. I’ll work on keeping the posts going until he is feeling well again. Your submissions are always appreciated!

Jeremy Perez

Youth and Beauty

By Frank McCabe The grip of winter is loosening just a little with breaks in the nearly constant
cloud cover and temperatures occasionally going above the freezing point. I am
looking forward to nights of observing that don’t involve shivering. This night
although below freezing was wind free and temperature tolerable. The promise of
spring is nearly here.

Tycho crater in the southern highlands was the target of my sketch this evening.
At 85 kilometers in diameter this large, young, complex crater exhibits fantastic
terraced walls and slopes with a large flat floor partly strewn with melt debris.
A pair of central peaks casting shadows to the southwest could clearly be seen. A
distance of 4.8 kilometers separates the floor from the crater rim and the central
peak stands tall at 2.4 kilometers. Wall slumping down to the west floor puts it a
little higher than the eastern floor. Rays extend outward from Tycho in most
directions. Some of these bright rays reach out 2000 kilometers across the lunar
surface. Tycho at 108 million years old is the youngest large crater visible on
the earth facing side of the moon. In the 1960’s this crater was briefly
considered as a landing target for an Apollo moon mission. Surveyor 7 spacecraft
soft landed successfully north of the crater in January of 1968. Ray distribution
from Tycho which is best seen at or near full moon, illustrates that the impactor
of mountain size came in at a shallow angle to the surface from the west and
ejected lunar highland crust and blocks mostly in non-western directions.

Land vertebrate life on earth was thriving quite nicely at this time since this
was 43 million years before the Chicxulub cratering event here on earth which
ended the good times for the “terrible lizards”.

Apollo 17 astronauts collected among the rocks and soil returned to earth samples
of the Tycho ray debris at the Taurus-Littrow valley including calcium rich
anorthosites that aided in dating the Tycho crater event.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 8”x 11”, white and
black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased
(-7) and contrast increased (+5) after scanning using Microsoft Office Picture
Manager.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 3-17-2008 0:45 – 1:55 UT
Temperature: -0.8°C (31°F)
high cloud cover and high humidity, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 28.1°
Lunation: 9.3 days
Illumination: 77.2 %
Phase: 57.0°
Observing Location: +41°37′ +87° 47′

Frank McCabe

Pardon My Hyperbole

Rima and Rupes Cauchy
By Rich Handy

Scanning the area to the west of the famous hyperbola shaped rille and rupes pair, I was pleasantly surprised to see each extending further in that direction (Rupes and Rima Cauchy become faint rilles) and passing by some of the most interesting pyroclastic deposits, lunar domes and cinder cones I’ve ever seen on the lunar surface. Each extend further in the eastern direction as well. Unfortunately I’d need two large sheets to sketch this area in the kind of detail it deserves, so I settled for this somewhat smaller vista. Check out Chuck Wood’s “The Modern Moon” page 88 and 89 for an excellent overview of this exciting area and Rukl Atlas Plates 36 and 37 for a detailed view of this amazing area. Rima Cauchy is just to the north of Cauchy, a 14 km, bowl shaped Copernican era crater that sits amidst the eastern Sea of Tranquility and pretty close to Sinus Concordiae, the mare area that tapers off to the north. To the south is Rupes Cauchy, its wall brightly lit in the the last rays of the late lunar afternoon. Immediately to the south of the Rupes were the two domes, Cauchy Tau to the west (right) and Cauchy Omega to the east. I noted the central peak on Omega with no problem, a testament to the kind of seeing I was blessed with last night. Though I couldn’t say with absolute certainty, there seemed to be two “Arago-like” domes below 12 km Eratosthenian aged Zahringer near the smaller 11 km Taruntius F.

Next time you are observing this area, take some time to visit this rare fault and rille and it’s terribly interesting environment. It may sound like hyperbola, but I’m not exaggerating, this place is lunie dreamland!

Here are the sketch details:

Subject: Rima and Rupes Cauchy and environs Rukl: 36,37
Date: 9-10/11-06 Started: 6:40 UT End: 8:24 UT
Seeing: Antoniadi I-II Weather: Clear most of session then fog late.
Telescope: 12″ Meade SCT F10
Binoviewer: W.O. Bino-P with 1.6X Nosepiece.
Eyepieces: W.O. WA 20mm Plossls
Magnification: 244X
Lunation: 18.48 days Phase: 311.1 deg Illumination: 82.9%
Colongitude: 133.7 deg Lib in Lat.: -3 deg 53 min Lib in Long.: +5 deg 12 min
Sketch medium: White and black Conte’ Crayons on black textured Strathmore paper.
Sketch size: 18″ x 24″

The Strong Pair

Lunar Craters Atlas and Hercules
By Frank McCabe

Atlas and Hercules the well known crater pair in the northeastern corner of the moon
are not far to the southwest of Endymion. Atlas (87 km.) the largest of the
pair may also be the younger of the two although it is listed as Upper Imbrium
era. Hercules (69 km.) is considered to be Eratosthenian in formation and thus
both craters are older than three billion years. Based on a lower crater
(craterlet) count and the younger appearance of the glacis, the Hercules impactor
may have struck first, followed by a few small crater forming strikes and then the
Atlas forming impact. The floors of these two craters are quite different from
each other. Atlas has a floor the is centrally uplifted and fractured into deep
fissures and rilles (Rimae Atlas) from the uplifting magma below that was unable
to flood the floor in the way that occurred with Hercules. The floor of Hercules
is mostly flooded with dark lava and contains a 13 kilometer crater (G) near its
center. The hotel sized rock that struck here less than a billion years ago left a
bright crater with rays that can be seen at high sun. A ghostly crater designated
Atlas E (58 km.) was justvisible north of Atlas and smaller Keldysh (34 km.) to the
north of Atlas E

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 9”x 12”, white and
black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased
(-8) and contrast increased (+8) after scanning using Microsoft Office Picture
Manager.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 2-14-2008 2:10-4:15 UT (actual sketching time was 50min.)
Temperature: -7°C (20°F)
partly cloudy, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 358.6°
Lunation: 6.9 days
Illumination: 48.6 %
Phase: 91.6°

Frank McCabe

Of Blocky Origins

The Region of Vallis Rheita

Very early Sunday morning the moon was approaching the meridian about 35° above
the southeastern horizon when I decided to take a closer telescopic look and
select a sketching target. Prominently on display near the sunset terminator was
the famous 330 kilometer long Vallis Rheita. This valley formed as a by-product of
the secondary blocks thrown from the mare Nectarius basin forming event that
occurred 3.92 billion years ago. Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke
collected rock samples that included ejecta from the Nectarius event which
permitted the dating. A multitude of monstrous blocks heaved out from the initial
impact to the south created this less than regular catena. The valley lines up
nicely with the west central region of the Sea of Nectar accounting for this
hypothesis.
Adjacent to the northern end of Vallis Rheita and slightly younger in age is
crater Rheita, a 70 kilometer gouge with a low central peak and a fairly sharp
crest. Across the deep valley from Rheita to the southwest is 88 kilometer crater
Metius with its 4 kilometer high walls and small crater Rheita B east of a pair of
low ridges on the crater floor. This highland region of the moon is very old and
battered. It was showing some of its best features in the setting sun.


Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 8”x 10”, white and
black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased
(-5) and contrast increased (+5) after scanning using Microsoft Office Picture
Manager.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 2-24-2008 0:10-1:00 UT
Temperature: -8°C (19°F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 123.2°
Lunation: 17 days
Illumination: 90.1 %
Phase: 323.3°

Frank McCabe

A Bite of the Pie

Total lunar eclipse, February 21, 2008
By Richard H.Handy

Sketch of Lunar Eclipse 022108
Last night’s lunar eclipse was not looking good for us southern California observers, as a trough of low pressure had ushered in a cold, wet Pacific storm, drenching the region in light showers. Knowing there would be no opportunity to set up any of my scopes for a sketch, I decided to try catching a naked eye view if there were any breaks in the clouds. Every 10 minutes or so, I stepped outside on the patio to see if Luna had made her appearance. I was beginning to lose hope when about 9:00 PST, a large cumulus cloud passed overhead leaving the Moon shining brilliantly less a slightly hazy black bite prominent in it’s northern hemisphere. I was very pleased because the opening in between the next set of clouds allowed about 7 or 8 minutes of sketching before closing the curtain on the show for the night. Although I missed the chromatic part of the eclipse, I felt happy to have come away with a memory, albeit just a sketch of a small part in this awesome drama of Sun, Earth, and Moon.

Sketch Details:

Subject: Naked eye view of the lunar eclipse on February 21, 2008

Time: 8:59 PST to 9:07 PST
Seeing: Antoniadi IV
Weather: Cloudy with intermittent light showers
Phase: 359.2 deg
Colongitude: 86 deg
Lunation: 14.05 Days
Notes: A perfect bite, a bit hazy about the edge
Medium: White Conte’ Crayon on black Strathmore Artagain paper
Sketch size: 9″ X 12″

McNaught’s Synchronic Bands

McNaught’s Synchronic Bands (Charcoal above and Conte’ below)
By Jeremy Perez

Well, just when I thought this amazing comet would finish the rest of it’s presence in the southern hemisphere as a spectacle I would only be able to enjoy through photos, it pulled another surprise. Remnants of its huge tail began to be observed by observers in the northern hemisphere. A very rare feature, sometimes called synchronic bands, began to appear and to drift away from the sun. For those in the southern hemisphere, this makes for an unbelievably gorgeous sight in the evening sky. For those of us in the mid-northern latitudes, it presents an opportunity revisit this beauty for a bit longer.

After analyzing various recent photos of the comet from the southern hemisphere, I printed out a star chart, and marked the area in Piscis Austrinus where the most northern segments of the tail fragments were last imaged. I printed out a couple more sheets to take with me for sketches, and headed north of town to escape more stubborn clouds. After a 30 mile drive to Wupatki National Monument, I entered the park and drove in search of a parking spot with a good view of the western horizon. About 4 miles down the empty park road, I was surprised–but then again maybe not too surprised–to find Brent Archinal parked along the side of the road with his tripod and camera set up. Whaddaya know! So I set up next to him and waited for twilight to darken while enjoying a beautiful view of Venus and the crescent Moon setting together.

By about 6:50 PM with the sun about 14 degrees below the horizon, and the head of the comet 19 degrees below, a bright spoke began to show itself midway between Fomalhaut and Venus. It was amazingly long–about 20 – 25 degrees from the horizon up to Phi Aquarii. As the sky darkened more, and the Zodiacal Light became very prominent, more bands began to appear in a fan running from Piscis Austrinus through much of Aquarius. I finished shooting several photos at 7:05 PM when my batteries ran out. (I’m all about great planning.) I then spent the next half hour sketching every bit I could detect, which turned out to be a very good investment. My photos didn’t turn out well at all, and the sketches showed much more detail than the best shot (which can be seen below).

You’ll notice not one, but two sketches above. Both make use of a pre-printed star chart from Starry Night Pro so that I could concentrate on the comet tails during the limited time before it set. The first is a charcoal sketch using a chamois to blend in the zodiacal light and skyglow above the horizon. I then used a blending stump to add the synchronic bands. The second sketch is made with Conté pencil on black Strathmore Artagain paper. I traced the stars onto the paper from the same starchart, and then used a blending stump to add both the Zodiacal Light and synchronic bands (since the Chamois didn’t seem to work so well there). I’m definitely partial to the results of the first charcoal sketch. The Conté sketch does look better in person though.

Subject C/2006 P1 (McNaught) – Synchronic Bands
Classification Comet Tail Fragments
Position* Through Piscis Austrinus and Aquarius
Size Longest Segment: ~25°
Brightness –
Date/Time January 20, 2007, 07:00 – 07:40 PM MST
(January 21, 2007, 02:00 – 02:40 UT)
Observing Loc. Wupatki National Monument, AZ
Instrument Naked Eye
Eyepieces/Mag. –
Conditions Clear, breezy
Seeing –
Transparency ~ Mag 6.8+ NELM
*Sources Starry Night Pro Plus v. 5.8