l like the crescent Moon shining on the western sky in remained blue,vermilion hue just after sun set.
lt was always looked as most mysterious, beautiful, or with some a feeling of affection.
Of course l used to see not the horizon alone but l see beyond over in my mind trillions of trillions of moons rising on over its parent planets maybe from in our own galaxy to in the Hubble Deep Fields galaxies. Also l think about trillions of advanced civilizations.
Observed; 2014. 10.29 ( Original eyepiece sketch)
Painted; 2015. 6.5
320mm refractor x270
Graphite pencils, water color, acrylic color, white/black paper
Moon limb span; 50km for [A], 50km for [B], [A]&[B] to be connected
The Zuben-eschamali…. a old beautifuly Arabian-named emerald greenish blue star was lonely shineing that May night just a year ago when l firstly aimed fixed star with freshly constructed 13″ refractor at the highest power which can bears. For more than 2 decade l usealy like to see the fixed single stars of 3-0 mignitude range especially since from the time my 8″, 8.5″ glasses were used
and l looked Vega, Arcturus, Sirius, Capella, Alteir, or 2-3 mignitude stars like this one through 12,13″ glasses particularly at high power 950-1500x . l represented the Zubeneschmali as possible as l can do as you see here but the real thing was far from my humble art for in the 1480 magnification Nagler 2.5s window image l can explain nothing but it was eradiating beautifuly & magnificently, even l felt eerie emotions with the large but still sharpest star image ragely gushed out spokes of light bunches. To explain the 2.6 mag, 160 ly distant alien sun, l made some 20 pages eyepiece sketches with explanationes & l introduce here only one on the recent night Arcturus record as almost 2-0 mag suns to be looked similaly except colors , l named myself the 3 parts at the 1000-1480x images ( under 1000x the 3 parts could not be seen easily with its break downed parts ) as a Diffraction disk part(Airy disk) , 1st flames part , Spokes part …. one 1st flame exactly confrontations one spoke each other & total number of this star,s spokes was observed of 18-25 bunches at every 1/30 second because ca 3-4 rowes of radial spokes rotating each other in slight different directions that l could not represent it here for the spokes were so dynamic as each 3-4 rows spokes rotated once in a 1/50-1/30 seconds that may lie in a human eye,s limited captureing time spans so there l could observe the perspective among the 3-4 rows….
For the other explanations l have to omit as thousends words not equals to just you look through once.
With these observations of years l could more &more feel the fixed stars are alien suns like ours in not fictions (in papers or photos) but in reality, reality emotion… that l feel only just a few minutes for in a full one year,s automatic robotic diary life time span , stangely , in my private opinion , we humanbeing (include other species on earth?) have not yet the 7th sensor organ feel direct the existent emotions in cosmos.
l have to thanks for the pioneers who firstly sought the star parallaxes.
My humble instruments are imposing enough against the 5 billion doller HST at least when they aim fixed stars , if l seated in it with 15,000x power, it,ll show me nothing but a 1/10 diameter Airy disk of mine even the HST can,t show the Alien sun,s limb circle even in pinpoint size at all that tells the vastness of the interstellar space.
Zuben-eschmali
K.S. Min
Observed; 2014. 5
Painted ; 2015. 5
320mm refractor x1480
Graphite pencils, water color, acrylic& oil color, white paper 30x45cm (working time; 4 hours)
Himax follows the Blackmax climing snowy hills where on a old Taoism landscaped alien planet in the Zubeneschamalli solar system
Photographed in a room w/ lights with a Canon 450d camera
Todays solar surface showed some interesting features that I tried to capture. There were a lot of long detailed filaments as well as a region to the east that looked like a piece of silk that had been crinkled and then flattened. To the west of this area was a brightening plage, at the moment the brightest region in the observation besides a bright spike on the limb. The prominences to the north were more subtle and dim.
White sketch paper
Grey charcoal, Tombow pencils 2H, 6B
White acrylic paint (plage)
Blending pencil
Photoscape to adjust contrast
60mm Lunt h-alpha 36x
3/21/2015 2010-2035 UT
Seeing Wilson 4/5 Transparency 2/4
Cindy (Thia) L. Krach
Maui, Hawaii
Venus, Mercury and Meteor – 10 January 2015Venus, Mercury – 10 January 2015
Object Name (Venus and Mercury)
Object Type (Plante conjunction and meteor)
Location (Artignosc-sur-Verdon France)
Date (Jan 10th 2015)
Media (watercolor, white paper, inverted after scan)
January the 10th the two inner planets of our solar system are very close. Following the nice pastel sketch made by Frank Jan 6th (ASOD Feb 2nd) I will take the opportunity to compare its view with this I made 4 days later.
While my watercolor session, a probable Quadrantide meteor produce a brilliant flash.
The two planets are easily seen in the field of my UWA EP.
Conjunction of Venus and Mercury – 18 January 2015
Living in Eastbourne, I am lucky enough to have the famous cliffs at the end of the South Downs close by; the panoramic views they afford are ideal for watching sunrises and sunsets, which are frequently rendered even more beautiful by dramatic coastal clouds. On Sunday 18th January I was driving back from a visit to the beach further east at Normans Bay, when I noticed a break opening up in the blanket of cloud to the west. Instead of heading home I made the short detour up to Beachy Head, where I was treated to this wonderfully picturesque celestial scene.
Best regards and clear skies, Oli
18/01/15 18:45 UT
Soft pastels on Rembrandt pastel paper with acrylic paint for Venus
The beginning nights of this year l could study intensely the physics of the Jupiter and moons such as motions, speeds, approachings, etc.
Great seeing were on the nights January. 3, 5, 18th, l made 2 main body of Jupiter sketches, 100 of the moons’ movements brief sketches with my 13″ refractor during just only 3 nights and these were seems to surpass the total amount of knowledges about Jupiter system saved in past 20 years with my 5-8″ instruments.
Am 2- 5 ;00 , the seeing was maintained 9-10 /10 for 3 hours on 18th Jan. l could see even the internal simplest details on Ganymede that heart beating with it’s limb between expanding and contracting with a 2 -3 seconds cycle . You can see its one of the mouments here as a water color painting , the feature on the moon was not settled as one but changed as ” T,Y,<,V,X,*..." shapes in the eyepieces because of the hard 1.7 arcseconds dia observing object also because by the 4.5 Ju-Dia distant Jupiter's glare. l observed Ganymede for 1 hour , the features were seen 20 times with one time as long as 5 seconds in 3 minuts interval for 1 hour. The large grayish white "NPC of Mars like" looking feature was impressive.
Notice the Io, Europa's circular disks transformed as strong ellipsoid at 3;20 , weak at 4;02 on 3rd Jan. when they approaching together in the center of the field of the eyepieces. lt was very much impressive.
l prepared that night's moons contact time-site markings in their syncronous motions in my bird-eye view scale plans describes the objects' exact time-positions to seek light speed for following 2-3 months as the Roemer did 350 years ago. "Seek himself (or herself ) the light speed"... lt is a must for a ama-astronomer.
K.S. Min
2015. 1.3 - 1. 18
320mm refractor x400-600
Graphite pencils, water color, acrylic, crayons , white paper
South Korea
Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) – January 11, 2015Michel’s fellow observers on the night of January 11, 2015
Object Name (C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy)
Object Type (Comet in Eridan)
Location (Verdon river in France)
Date (Jan. 11th 2015)
Media (watercolor on white paper, inverted after scan via paint.net)
During the “Charlie Hebdo” event we had to keep the pencil in hand, to prove that life goes on and is beautiful and that cretinism can’t win, ever. Today, poverty of spirit associated with force no longer have a voice in civilized countries !
The Lovejoy expedition.
Four of my good friends astronomers propose to come and enjoy the dark sky of the region. Appointment is made on 8 January in the early evening. The day before I found a good ground for observing this beautiful comet without too many trees in the view. Near the small village of Saint-Laurent, a platform overlooking the north side of the Lake of Artignosc on the Verdon river. First I will make some sketches and (yes I know… sorry guys) photographs of the landscape and material that will serve my watercolor the day after.
The photo of the sky taken on Jan. the 7th (Pentax K50 3.5 – 3sec 25600 ISO -18mm) shows the comet as a brillant green star equivalent magnitude to Pi ORI +/- 4.0. But I’m not here to make photo ! it just allow me to position the stars on the sky background on my future painting.
The evening of Jan. 8th everyone is there, my friends Vincent, Antoine, Yvan and Jean-Bernard, made the trip from Brignoles, La Garde, Forcalqueiret and Salon. It’s cold, the wind and the news from Paris make us shiver.
The comet is visible to the unaided eye, even in direct vision. During the previous night, a tail departure was barely noticeable in my Dobson 12ˮ f 5. Today we are three of us observing a double tail, a very short first part is attached to the hair while another, a sort of fine filament spreading further.
It was extremely difficult to see that tail, face this huge ball of light that is the coma of Comet Lovejoy.
Through a set of 2ˮ filters provided by Vincent (CLS, OIII, UHC) we got to see something other than the coma. This is strangely due to the CLS filter that we have been able to detect some clarity in front of the dark sky. We had to get the coma out of the eyepiece to discern the low-contrast gradient between the black sky and the thin clouds of the tail. We are here at the border of the possibilities for the vision.
Dobson used was a 12ˮ f/d 5 and 2ˮ eyepieces Meade 24mm to Omegon 38mm, UWA. We deployed 80mm and 150mm refractors as well as quality binoculars: Echo and Swarovski.
The watercolor shows our group gathered for this “Lovejoy expedition” after two hours of dense observation.
So the final watercolor shows the views of the sky the day before, a view of the Dobson and -with a flash- portraits taken by the Vincent’s camera.
Observing is also meeting us for the same vibration, the same enthusiasm, and that night it was … it was … there was … something strong in the air!
The Planet Uranus and its moons, Oberon, Ariel, and Titania December 11, 2014Uranus and it’s moons, Oberon, Ariel, and Titania – December 11, 2014
Object Name (Uranus with moons)
Object Type (Planet and satellites)
Location : Observatoire Astronomique de Bauduen, Provence France
Date 2014 Dec 11th
Media (graphite pencil, and inverted watercolor on white paper, Paint.net for the inversion)
That’s maybe because I like to use this great telescope, or it’s because I like challenges but,… it’s certainly not the best optical combination for this observation.
On 11 December, I finally found a corner of pure sky above the 24-inch reflector made by Olivier Planchon. To observe Uranus, the speed is definitely too high: f / 3.3 d, so we had to use very short focal EP to reach the useful magnification (Nagler 3.7 and 2.5) !.
If you look at my watercolor you can see a somewhat elongated comet hair that diffuse around the planet, that’s exactly how we see the planet area in the field, this is probably linked to a not 100% perfect collimation, but still. I get the impression that the work of collimation facing these big tubes, it is not a piece of cake.
Anyway, we can say two things:
1- We observed three of the Uranus satellites: Oberon, Titania and Ariel, this last one being a bit lost in the lights of the planet
2- the disk of the planet was not uniform as seen in a small telescope or some photos. It’s very difficult to confirm, but a diffuse zone clearer was observed in the upper atmosphere of Uranus, is that an artifact, I do not know? Anyway the main direction of the area is not in the direction of the cloud bands of Uranus.
Another composition of this observation is given here: http://astro.aquarellia.com/croquis/uranus_page_h.jpg
Lunar mountains as they appear along the limb – December 6, 2014Anomalous December 6, 2014 libration illustrated
The night on December 6 , 3;00-4;00 am was great to observe the 15day moon.
After study some pdf Taurus-Littrow Valley ,NASA, in web, l looked through the eyepieces and soon l found the position of the 15day lunar shade terminator was wrong and strangely for, l remember the lunar phases on 15day moon were always [East-West]ward apparent, this time it was anomalously [North-South] ward.
l think it was not because by libration definitely but by some unknown force pushed the moon downward against the flat normal orbital plane of moon-earth system. l was so tired that night that l had only one hour observation not enough time to check how the limb shade was changing even l could’nt sketch reasonably well the old China or Korean Taoism like landscape and this magnificent similarly scenery was stretched along the limb almost 350km long and of course my limitation was only 70km span , yes-, l have also experienced the Grand Canyon like scenery once with the 8′ og in Dec 2013, twice was recently with the 13″ og 1.5months ago. Now is a Taoism scene.
The naked eye view of the Sun through solar eclipse glasses and detailed view of AR 2214 through a refractor telescope with a white light filter – November 20, 2014
Object Name (Sun)
Object Type (Sun photosphere)
Location (Artignosc-sur-Verdon/France )
Date (2014/11/20)
Media (graphite pencil (sketrch down) and watercolor (full sun up) on white paper, Paint.net)
The old sunspot 2192 is now making its second pass across the face of our sun with a new number : 2214.
It’s the first time that I can see a spot naked-eye after a complete sun rotation. For the inverted watercolour shown here up, I use special glasses for eclipse, the orange color is this of my glasses, you can see some mist in the foreground meaning that the conditions were not perfect. For the telescope view I use a white light objective filter, I add an orange color layer after scanning.
