Pencil – Page 189 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Blood Red Sun

Hind’s Crimson Star
By Wade V. Corbei

R Leporis – Hinds Crimson Star

This is the first time I have observed Hind’s Crimson Star, and I have to say that it is indeed adequately named. A variable star found in the constellation Lepus, Hind’s Crimson Star (R Leporis) is a very deep red/crimson variable star that stands out among the white stars nearby. I have long been a fan of the Garnet Star (Mu Cephi); but I have to say that Hind’s Crimson Star displays its namesake coloration to its fullest extent.

If you have never taken a moment to observe R Leporis, you will want to do so…or just revisit it and take a looksie if this is not a new object for you.

Lunar Icon

The Lunar Crater Copernicus
By Eric Graff

Copernicus

Lunar Impact Crater

Parks Astrolight EQ6 • 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector
7.5mm Parks Gold Series Plössl + 2x Barlow • 240x
Field of View Not to Scale
21 September 2007 • 02:05-03:15 UT

This iconic lunar crater presents a truly majestic sight perched on the terminator of the nine-day-old Moon. The complex features of the crater floor are completely lost in shadow, but the crater walls stand out in fantastic relief, clearly exhibiting the famously terraced slopes. These terraces are believed to have formed from massive landslides of debris dug out by the impact that has collapsed and subsided. The ejecta blanket surrounding the crater is visible on the preceding (sunlit) side; radial features extending from the south-preceding crater wall are believed to be grooves blasted out of the surrounding terrain at the time of impact.

A few small, hill-like features dot the region just south of Copernicus. To the north a more extensive region of hills and mountains known as Montes Carpatus, extends about 400 kilometers in an east-west direction, forming the southern boundary of Mare Imbrium. The roughly circular feature amidst these mountains, due north of Copernicus is 26 km wide crater Gay-Lussac.

Copernicus is named in honor of the great Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus whose heliocentric theory of the solar system published in De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium provided one of the cornerstones of modern astronomy. The crater itself has a diameter of 93 kilometers, and a depth of 3760 meters. Copernicus is noted for its dramatically terraced walls, relatively flat floor and a group of central peaks (with heights up to 1200 meters). The ramparts of the outer walls rise 900 meters above the surrounding plain of Mare Insularum. Only 800-900 million years old, Copernicus is relatively young by the Moon’s standards and remarkably well preserved.

Celestial Scarab

After a couple days off from observing the comet, I was treated to more stunning views. The Moon was out of the sky, and Holmes was really showing its stuff. To the naked eye, it is a soft puff in Perseus. Through 15 x 70 binoculars, it is simply awesome, floating brightly amid a rich star field. Color is now hard to describe, but I think it looks like the most subtle aqua color. Through the telescope, it is wonderfully bright, and loaded with soft detail. The subtle outer halo makes the comet appear even brighter than it is, as though the radiance of the coma is lighting up its surroundings. The outer halo appears brighter to me along the southwest side. The coma sports a well-defined northeast side with a diffuse southwest edge. Its edges have a hairy appearance that looks like it is being blown gently to the southwest. Within the coma, the central condensation now looks detached from the pseudonucleus. Some very subtle radial features began to coalesce after 45 minutes of observing at 120X and 240X. I don’t know if these are real structures, or just the cometary version of Martian canals. A brighter jet seemed to connect the now faint pseudonucleus with the detached condensation.

My measurements with the astrometric eyepiece are as follows:

Central Condensation: 92 arc seconds / 1.5 arc minutes
Coma: 653 arc seconds / 10.9 arc minutes
Outer Halo: 1550 arc seconds / 25.8 arc minutes

Subject 17P / Holmes
Classification Comet
Position* 6:15 UT – Perseus: [RA: 03:45:52.4 / Dec: +50:32:29]
Size Central condensation: 92 arc seconds / 1.5 arc minutes
Coma: 653 arc seconds / 10.9 arc minutes
Outer halo: 1550 arc seconds / 25.8 arc minutes
Brightness* ~ 2.6 vMag
Date/Time October 31, 2007, 10:00 – 11:30 PM
(November, 2007, 05:00 – 06:30 UT)
Observing Loc. Flagstaff, AZ – Home
Instrument Orion XT8 (203 mm dia./1200 mm F/L)
Eyepieces/Mag. 25 mm Sirius Plössl (48X)
10 mm Sirius Plössl +/- 2X Barlow (120X/240X)
12 mm Meade Astrometric +/- 2X Barlow (~100X/200X)
Conditions Clear, calm
Seeing 3/10 Pickering
Transparency ~ Mag 5.8 NELM
*Sources Aerith.net; Starry Night Pro Plus 5
*Based on published data.

Partial View of the Heart

A partial view of the Heart Nebula, IC 1805
By Rony De Laet

While IC 1848 appears as a distinct glow in the eye-piece, IC 1805 is a more difficult object to frame. IC 1805 is too large for my lowest power eye-piece. And the background is filled with starglow, competing with the subtle glow of the nebulosity of IC 1805. It’s hard to tell where the nebula dominates the glow. I decided to center the Northern part of IC in the EP. Why? Because I found the starfield with NGC 1027 an attractive area. NGC 896 just fell on the border of of my fov. Therefore it remained invisible to my eye. It occurs to me that I should return my gaze to this interesting piece of sky to capture the Southern part of IC 1805. Funny thing is that I reconned that my little scope would provide plenty of fov for large objects. And then I ran into an object like IC 1805. Maybe some bino’s might fill in the task in the future. Here is the sketch. (I must point out that not all the ‘glow’ represented in the sketch has a nebulous origin.)

Date : January 2, 2008
Time : around 21.00UT
Scope : Skywatcher 102/500
Eyepiece : Meade SP 26mm
Power : x20
FOV: 150′
Filter : Lumicon UHC
Seeing : 3/5
Transp. : 3/5
Nelm : 4.9 with moments of 5.2
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.

A Speedy Reputation

Comet 8P/Tuttle
By Michael Rosolina

Comet 8P/Tuttle is a periodic comet that comes by our little corner of the solar
system every 13.6 years. It was first discovered by Pierre Mechain 1790 but then
lost, not to be found again until Horace Tuttle spotted it in 1858.

This apparition is a particularly favorable one with Tuttle passing close to the
Earth–closest approach was 23.5 million miles/37.8 million km on January 1st. By
the end of December, Tuttle had brightened to about magnitude 6, putting it at the
threshold of vision for sharp-eyed observers with dark skies.

Because of its nearness to Earth, Tuttle lives up to the speedy reputation that the
word comet invokes. At the time of this sketch, it was covering about 4 degrees of
arc every day as it moved rapidly south through the constellation Pisces into Cetus.
I have included Tuttle’s position at the start of my observation to give some
sense of the distance it traveled in less than an hour.

The sketch was done at the eyepiece on Strathmore 400 series medium weight recycled
sketch paper. I used an HB pencil and a loaded stump and blended with my fingers.
After scanning I inverted the sketch digitally.

Stellar Reflection

M78, a reflection nebula in Orion
By Wade V. Corbei

After trying more than once, I finally was able to get a good night of dark skies and good seeing in order to observe M78, a Reflection Nebula in Orion last month.

Although fairly unspectacular overall, there is a rich starfield that helped in enhancing the overall view of this nebula through the EP. I did notice, with averted vision, that quite a few of the stars that surround this nebula contained some color…from slight blueish-white to a rusty orange/red. The colors, although slight, add a nice contrast in the EP FOV.

A Winter Trip to California

NGC 1499, The California Nebula
By Rony De Laet

Hello all,

Another challenging object suggested by Sue French is the California Nebula. The object has been imaged very often, mostly with an H-Alpha filter. I tried several times from within my backyard to locate NGC1499 visually with my four inch scope. With the H-Alpha images in mind, I expected to see an obvious streak of light in the eyepiece. Of course, my nelm 5.2 sky did not offer me such a view. At home, I suspected some nebulosity North of Xi Persei. I wondered what the Alpine sky would reveil of NGC 1499. My findings were at first dissapointing. I saw the same nebulosity as from my backyard, only did it show up more obvious. The way NGC 1499 appears to me visually would not inspire me to call it a California shape. Nevertheless is NGC 1499 a very interesting object for the patient observer. I estimated the Nelm in Austria (Bisschofshofen) that night around mag 5.7. A better sky would offer a more detailed view for sure. Here is my impression.

Date : December 27, 2007
Time : around 17.30UT
Scope : Skywatcher 102/500
Eyepiece : Meade SP 26mm
Power : x20
FOV: 150′
Filter : Lumicon UHC
Seeing : 4/5
Transp. : 4/5
Nelm : 5.7
Elevation : 800m ASL
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.

Sunken Yet Uplifted

The lunar crater Posidonius
By Frank McCabe

Posidonius on the Eastern Shore of the Sea of Serenity

On this cold morning in early December the most eye-catching crater resting on the
concave sloping rim of Mare Serenitatis was 96 kilometer diameter Posidonius. The
Posidonius cratering event likely occurred 150 thousand years or more after
Serenitatis formed a ring basin. The subsequent floor uplift and fracturing within
Posidonius created a large angular block and ridge margin that you can see arching
parallel along and just inside the outer eastern crater rim. At 17.5 days into the
lunation, the floor of Posidonius appeared much brighter than the dark margin lava
of Serenity. Eleven kilometer crater A near the center of Posidinius was clearly
visible in the poor seeing as were craters B, J, and M arching out from the rim to
the north. Beyond these craters encircled by the Lake of Dreams is 25 by 30 km.
oval “island crater” Daniell, formed by a shallow angle impact before the greater
Posidonius event took place. South from Posidonius and again along the shore of
Serenity is the 63 km. flooded crater LeMonnier. Nearly all of the west rim of this
tilted crater and its floor are covered by the dark margin lava of the Sea of
Serenity.

Sketching:

2H graphite pencil on 5 x 8 inch index card
Date: 12-8-2006 11:30 to 12:15 UT
Temperature: -14 °C (6° F)
clear, cold winds
Pickering scale: 3/10
10 inch f / 5.7 Dobsonian 161X
Colongitude:127.5°
Lunation: 17.6 days
Illumination: 86.3 %

Frank McCabe

The Many Faces of Mars

Mars opposition 2007-2008
By Kris Smet

I started observing Mars early in July to make the most of the opposition in
December when the planet’s disk reached almost 16“. However the first few sketches
may not look like much, I believe making the sketches helped me gain more experience
over the months. Putting the colour of mars on paper was much harder than I thought
it would be, I’ve tried a few different colours but kept changing them because I
wasn’t completely happy with it. The last sketch in my opinion looks most as how
mars appears to my eye in the scope. (All sketches were done with my 8” f/5
reflector on equatorial mount btw, I didn’t took the tube from the dobson base until
October though.)

All sketches are made outside sitting at the scope, with plain A4 printer-paper on a
clipboard on my lap. After the scope is brought back inside I work the sketch out
with colours and scan them in on my computer. The only ‘processing’ I (sometimes) do
is adjusting the brightness and sharpness levels a bit to look a bit more
eyepiece-like.

If you look very closely you can see the small disappearing south polar cap on the
first 5 sketches, after that I couldn’t detect it anymore. During September and the first part of October the north polar hood appeared bluish to me, but it seemed to disappeared and on the 14 October sketch the hood doesn’t show any blue.

While Mars was showing me it’s so called ‘boring side’ during September and October
(accept 5/10 & 31/10) I had the impression that the area south of mare Sirenum,
Cimmerium and Mare Tyrrherium was brighter and more yellow than the desert plains
laying south of them.

In December I had some very good views of the Syrtis Major region in which I could
see some detail. I had to wait until early 2008 to get my first view of the Solis
Lacus region, because whenever this side was facing earth I was clouded out :p

I hope to get more viewing time during January, February and perhaps March to make
another ‘collage’ of Mars sketches.

Fire and Ice

The Sun in Ha light on January 4th, 2008
By Erika Rix

2008 01 04
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA
Erika Rix
Solar

It was a beautiful sight today with the Sun gleaming off the snow. The snow was
melting fast as the temperature was slowly rising. Unfortunately, the snow didn’t
melt fast enough off the observatory roof, so I had to just drop down the upper part
of the southern wall and leave the roof completely on, otherwise, I would have had
to deal with water dripping on my gear in the observatory. As it turned out, it was
a good way to keep the winds at bay today, plus I’m sure kept me warmer in the more
enclosed space.

There were four very bright plage areas on the disk in h-alpha. One from NOAA 10981,
another large intricate plage structure for 10980, then a very thin bright one that
reached over to 10980 just inside the Eastern limb. The final was toward the West. I
could see a dark “spot” being cradled by the plage in 981, and by viewing in white
light, there was most definitely a small pore that appeared almost elongated. With
all the haze today plus winds during my white light filter session outside of the
observatory, it was difficult to tell if this elongation was another very tiny pore
just beside the larger one, or if it was just blurred from the conditions outside.
In any case, both to the NE and the SW of this dark dot were faint markings
resembling contrast of faculae. I couldn’t confirm what the markings were with this
observation.

In white light, I could see no other evidence of active regions.

Getting back to h-alpha in the observatory, there were six areas of prominence
around the limb that I could see. With the haze and poor seeing conditions, I had to
wait for moments of clarity and steadiness to get good definition for closer looks.
Patience definitely proved to be valuable today.

The prominence to the SE just below the AR980 was very faint and fan-like. To the
very southern portion of it, it became brighter. I could almost make out all the
connections to each section of it.

Then at the western limb, slightly to the south was a very sharp brighter prominence
with several fingers reaching out like flames. I really enjoyed this one.

The show stopper of the session was most definitely the plage with a few dark thin
filaments looking as if they were separating the plage in AR980 and onward to the
eastern limb.

It’s said that a new solar cycle has begun, making it number 24. We’ll see, but it’s
looking promising.