Category: Media Combinations

Craters Stöfler and Faraday

Craters Stöfler and Faraday
Craters Stöfler and Faraday

One could sketch the plethora of craters in the southern highlands and not finish them for many years. The craters for sketching chosen here are ones I have not sketched before but were standouts on this evening. The finest sketch I have ever seen of this region was made back in January of 2007 by Sally Russell and can be seen at Astronomy Sketch of the Day for March 27, 2007.

The central large crater that anchors this sketch is Pre-Nectarian period Stöfler a 129 kilometer walled plain with a buried central peak. Piled on top of it to the southeast are a sequence of craters decreasing in size and including one without a name, then Faraday ( 71 km.), Stöfler P ( 34 km.) and Faraday C ( 30 km.). North of Stöfler most of the rim of crater Fernelius (66 km.) was visible but all of the floor was in darkness.

I was forced to work quickly as clouds were rolling in at about the time I was just beyond mid-sketch.

Equipment and Sketching:

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian on a drive platform 4mm ortho eyepiece 361x

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9″x 12″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps, white Pearl eraser.

Date: 11-2 to 11-3-2011 23:30-00:40 UT
Temperature: 17° C (63° F)
Partly cloudy soon becoming mostly cloudy, high humidity 70%
Waxing gibbous phase
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Transparency: 6/10
Colongitude: 356.6 °
Lunation: 7.2 days
Illumination: 53.2 %

Frank McCabe

Two Days of Incredible Solar Activity

H-Alpha Sun - November 12 and 14, 2011
H-Alpha Sun - November 12 and 14, 2011

Object type – Huge filament and prominence
Location – Wilp, The Netherlands
Date – November 12 and November 14, 2011
Media – Pastel pencil on black paper, color with Photoshop

The largest prominence and the largest filament I have ever seen, both visible at the same time! It was a fantastic view and I made two sketches of them, two days apart. On November 14, the huge filament blew a large part of itself away from the Sun at the exact moment I was observing, creating a thin candle-like flame above the surface. A remarkable sight. Clearly the Sun is getting more active every month. What it’s got left in its suprise box while creeping towards solar maximum? Can’t wait to find out!

Kind Regards,
Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl

Massive Solar Prominence

H-Alpha Sun - November 12, 2011
H-Alpha Sun - November 12, 2011

Our star continues to provide stunning sights as we approach solar maximum. This huge prominence, among the biggest I’ve ever seen, is visible in the hydrogen alpha wavelength, but it takes a specially designed scope or filter to see it. My 40mm Personal Solar Telescope (PST) is one such scope.

The prominence consists of superheated solar plasma suspended along magnetic field lines. It is not static, but changes constantly–sometimes the changes happen quickly and sometimes slowly. The appearance of this prominence had changed subtly by the end time of the sketch, so if you want to draw one of these monsters, be prepared to work fast!

The Sun in H alpha
Solar Prominence
Friars Hill, WV USA
12 November 2011 1850-1910 UT
Conte’ crayon, Conte’ pencil, and Derwent Graphtint color pencil on black paper.

Thanks,

Michael Rosolina

Conjunction of Moon and M44

Moon and M44
Moon and M44

While reviewing my log book I came across this sketch of the conjunction of the Moon and M44, May 10, 2008 as seen from my backyard in Orleans, Ontario, Canada at about 10:10 local time. The sketch was made with white pastel on black paper and scanned into the computer, No processing was done. The seeing was very good that evening. My log comments that at 200x in my 8″ Dob everything was very steady. I was struck by the beauty of this conjunction especially with the earthshine on the moon.

Clear skies,
Gordon

Crescent Nebula – NGC 6888

NGC 6888
NGC 6888

I made the sketch at the Okanagan Observatory on July 9 2011.
I used pastels on black paper along with a brush and smudging stump. The stars are a mixture of white charcoal and a white gel pen.

The sketch was done with a 15″ dob using a 20mm Nagler as well as a Lumicon UHC filter.
The SQM-L was 21.24

Thanks
John Karlsson
Vernon B.C.
Canada

The majestic Swan

Messier 17
Messier 17

Hello everyone,

This last new moon I managed to pin onto paper the fabulous Swan Nebula, M17. After my previous new Moon’s view of it, I’ve been chaffing at the bit to get back to it. It is just so detailed, expansive, and subtle in features.

Most striking is the particularly dark hollow that is surrounded by the ‘neck’ of the Swan. It is so much darker than the surrounding space. Here is a tell-tale-sign of not only a dark pillar obstructing the light from the nebula, but that there is so much background light that comes from the background, invisible stars in this section of the Milky Way, that this dark pillar is just SO BLACK.

My previous look at the Swan had me see for the first time the highly textured nature of the ‘bird’s body’. This time, with the added time spent on looking at it, I noticed so much more extensive nebulosity that radiates out from the obvious avian shape. These extensions themselves are so very detailed.

As my big dob is of the good old push-pull type, the constant manual moving of the scope had my eye picking up this faint network of faint smokiness, that a ‘static’ image from a driven scope may not have allowed to be viewed so easily. Such as the heightened darkness immediately above and below the bird’s back and body, only to have more nebulosity sit above and below it, and even behind it. The effect was akin to a swan emerging from out of a soft bank of fog, and the bird’s movement through it causing a delicate disruption to the fog. Just beautiful.

This was a real challenge to sketch. So much of the object is so faint, needing averted vision to make it out. The mottled texture of the bird’s plumage was extraordinarily difficult to make out and lay down faithfully. So much of this is all averted vision work.

By far my most satisfying sketch to date. I hope you enjoy it too.

Object: M17, the Swan Nebula
Scope: 17.5”, f/4.5, push-pull dob.
Gear: 13mm Ethos (thanks Jim!), + OIII filter, 154X
Date: 30th July, 2011
Location: Mount Blackheath Lookout, NSW, Australia
Materials: White soft pastels & charcoal pencil on A4 size black paper, done over 3hrs.

Alex.

Messier 33

Messier 33
Messier 33

location : plateau d’emparis (Ecrin, France)
date : 01/10/2011
media : black paper, pastel, pensil
instrument : Newton 254mm

M33 is visible at the naked eye (Gegenshein too). In the dobson, I guess a lots of details, many HII region in 2 big spiral arms and the 3 other smaller.
It’s very wonderful, as in a spacecraft between the two galaxy.
The most important is the sky, and I think if the seeing was lower I could see more details.

seize the night

Craters Frankin and Cepheus One Night Apart

Craters Cepheus and Franklin
Craters Cepheus and Franklin

With the Moon at waning gibbous phase, it continues to dominate the night sky for a few more days. On Tuesday night I carefully picked a target area for sketching so that I might catch it again the next night to see the change in shadows a day makes. Lucky for me the sky was clear both nights.
Crater Franklin (58 km.) is the larger and older of the pair and Cepheus (41 km.) has a visible impact crater namely, Cepheus A (13 km.) directly on its northeastern rim.

Sketching Information

First Sketch
Franklin and Cepheus craters on ebony black Canson paper using white and black Conte’ pastel pencils
Sketch Date: August 16, 2011, using a 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian telescope riding on an equatorial platform with a 6mm eyepiece for 241x at 05:00-06:10 UT
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Weather: Clear, calm, 59 degrees F (15 degrees C)
Lunation: 16.5 days
Moon 94.3% illuminated
Colongitude: 115.7°

Second Sketch
Same type of paper
Sketch Date: August 17, 2011, using same telescope and same eyepiece at 04:00-05:15 UT
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Weather clear, calm, 64 degrees F (17 degrees C)
Lunation 17.4 days
Moon 89.3% illuminated
Colongitude 127.3°

Frank McCabe

Full Disk Feast

H-Alpha Sun - August 2, 2011
H-Alpha Sun - August 2, 2011

This morning everything seemed to be right. The weather was absolutely great, the Sun was more active than I’ve seen so far this year and the seeing was above average. A good day to try sketching a full-disk h-alpha sun for the first time instead of an isolated prominence. First I made a blank disk with a soft white pastel. I took the sketch outside and filled in all the details I could see through the eyepiece of my 70mm solar telescope with white and black pastel pencils. All regions were very active, especially the middle one: it changed its shape within minutes. Sometimes little bright flare-like brightenings appeared and disappeared 2 minutes later. A wonderful sight! It took me one hour (from 08.00 UT – 09.00 UT) to complete the drawing. I scanned the (black&white) sketch and gave it a reddish color with Photoshop.
Object Name Sun
Object Type Star
Location Deventer, The Netherlands
Date August 2, 2011
Media Pastel on black paper

Kind regards,

Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl