Pencil – Page 192 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Sculptor’s Reticulated Showpiece

NGC 55
Edge-on Barred Magellanic Galaxy in Sculptor
By Eric Graff

Parks Astrolight EQ6 • 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector
15mm Parks Gold Series Plössl • 60x, 52′ Field of View
11 October 2007 • 05:30-06:30 UT

The late Walter Scott Houston wrote, “Some deep-sky objects offer beautiful, breathtaking visual experiences. NGC 55 is one such object.” Christian Luginbuhl and Brian Skiff call this galaxy “one of the most interesting and detailed in the sky.” Stephen James O’Meara named it “one of the night sky’s finest wonders.” Clearly, this galaxy has something of a reputation. As I slewed my scope toward 2nd-magnitude Alpha (α) Phoenicis (my guide star for this particular object), I wondered if the view would live up to the high praise these respected observers offered up to this edge-on Magellanic-type galaxy on the southern border of Sculptor.

Centering the golden giant Alpha Phe in my 30mm eyepiece, I quickly located NGC 55 by offsetting my scope 2° west of Alpha and sweeping a little over 3° north. Star-hoppers may wish to follow a ragged line of 6th-7th magnitude stars northward from Alpha Phe and then west toward the galaxy.

Despite its southerly declination (culminating only 18° above my southern horizon), NGC 55 is indeed a stunning sight in the eyepiece. This large, bright galaxy displays a fascinating degree of detail including its three “nuclei”, extensive mottling (particularly in the bright, central region), and a reticulated network of dark lanes.

James Dunlop discovered NGC 55 on August 4, 1826. Distance estimates range from 4.2 million light-years upward toward 7 million light-years (with the smaller distance estimates being more current). Most astronomers place NGC 55 in the Sculptor Group of galaxies, but some have suggested that NGC 55 (together with NGC 300) are foreground objects and members of our own Local Group of galaxies.

Information provided by Eric Graff

A Feast in the Martian Desert

Mars
By Sol Robbins

In describing his sketching technique for recent Mars sketches, Sol noted:

It occurs to me that there is a bit of a change taking place in my sketches. One change is in regard to the paper I am using which is very smooth. It is from Office Depot, Super White Platinum Series. That’s in concert with using just a 2H pencil.

Seems like I can get a range of gray tones that are pretty close to each other. These tones are evident in that last couple of Mars sketches which shows my newer ability to render details in light and dark albedo features with more subtlety. This paper accepts and holds on to graphite in a very controllable way.

It holds up well to rubbing when working up details which helps a lot in allowing a wider range of lifting or erasing graphite quickly. Blends smoothly too. Gray tones can be worked up faster.

I guess all of the above just adds up to being able to have a perceivable/scanable depth or richness when working on computer print out paper with a simple pencil. Blending stumps work very well on this paper too.

Its a 20 lb paper and acid free.

Parabolic Leviathan in Perseus

Comet 17P/Holmes
By Michael Rosolina

This is a recent view of the incredible, expanding, and ever-changing comet C17P/Holmes. Holmes is best viewed at low power so the observer can take in the entire coma, now greater in diameter than the Sun.

The outburst which produced this expansion may have a second act–the 1892 apparition had two outbursts about 75 days apart–so Holmes continues to be a worthwhile target for the amateur observer. It is best seen in a moonless sky, although the view holds up amazingly well even when Luna is present.

The sketch was done at the eyepiece with an HB graphite pencil, a blending stump, and a kneadable eraser on Strathmore 400 series 60 pound paper and inverted digitally after scanning.

Michael Rosolina
Friars Hill, WV USA

Jewels at the Feet of Gemini

M35 (NGC 2168)
By Wade V. Corbei

Visible to the naked eye under good sky conditions, M35 resolves into a nearly circular mass sparkling with stars, even with small aperture instruments. The cluster consists of 400-500 stars with 120 brighter than magnitude 13. It is 2700 to 2800 light years distant with a diameter of about 24 light years. It is estimated to be about 100 million years old and contains several yellow and orange giants. The cluster is approaching us at 5 km/sec. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745-46, independently rediscovered by John Bevis before 1750, and finally cataloged by Charles Messier in 1764.

Source: SEDS

Elusive Continent

NGC 7000 – The North America Nebula
By Rony De Laet

How many summer nights have I been looking to find this great nebula? I’ve tried with a 10cm f10 newton, a 20cm f10 dobson, an ETX 105 f14. But no result. This year I was armed with a widefield low budget SkyWatcher plus a 32mm Televue eyepiece and a Lumicon UHC filter. And there it was, a distinct glow with the shape of a continent! How beautiful, and finally I saw it in my sky. Here is the sketch. I also tried to render the effect of the UHC filter on brighter stars. Somehow this filter produces large halo’s around the brighter stars.

Date : September 15, 2007
Time : 21.30UT
Scope : Skywatcher 102/500
TV Plössl 32mm
Power : x16
FOV: 150′
Filter : Lumicon UHC
Seeing : 3.5/5
Transp. : 3/5
Nelm : 5.2
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.

Note:
Rony De Laet discusses his sketching method here: About the Drawings
His gallery can be found here: My EXT-105 Project

A Stellar Swarm in Pegasus

M15
By Barry Chase

Perhaps the most dense of the Milky Way’s globular clusters, M15 lies about 33,600 light years away and is about 175 light years in diameter. It has undergone a core collapse and half the mass of the cluster resides within a 10 light year radius of its center. It is not clear whether this dense concentration is due to the gravitational interactions of the clusters stars, or if it is due to the influence of a supermassive object–a black hole–at its core. M15 is also the first globular cluster in which a planetary nebula was found. (This planetary nebula, Pease 1, is a considered a challenging target for amateur astronomers with large telescopes, dark steady skies, and lots of patience.)

Source: SEDS

Ikeya-Zhang’s Ionic Wind Sock

C/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang)
By Martin Mc Kenna

C/2002 C1 Ikeya – Zhang on March 20th 2002 at 20.48 LT as seen through the 10X50mm binoculars. The 6 day old waxing crescent moon was high in the SW which drowned out the fainter secrets of the comet however I could still see a tail 7 degrees long which had a ‘forked’ appearance due to the possible detection of the fainter straight blue ion tail at a slight angle from the main dust tail.

The dust and ion tails were superimposed on one another at the time. With binoculars or the naked eye the comet was a pearly white colour however with the light grasp of a telescope one could see the tell tale blue signature of the more subtle and dynamic ion/gas/plasma tail. On March 3rd astrophotographers imaged a rare disconnection event within the ion tail caused by changes in the solar wind. Comet tails are the ‘wind socks’ of the solar system and hence observations and CCD images are of great importance to professional astronomers within this field.

Eta Carinae from Haleakala

Eta Carinae Complex and NGC 3293
By Jeremy Perez

Move mouse over image to see labels. Click for larger image.

The observing highlight of an evening atop the summit of Haleakala in Maui was gazing through my binoculars at the rich starscape in the vicinity of Eta Carinae. I had not done any homework on the area beforehand, so I approached it with unexpecting eyes. The mottled depths of the surrounding Milky Way, the smattering of intensely bright foreground stars, the abundance of open clusters of all shapes, sizes and intensities, and the stunning patches of glowing nebulosity made the whole region a delicious feast for the eyes. One incredible open cluster to the northeast, nearly took my breath away, but I did not have time to even attempt a sketch of it. Instead, I chose to render the region bracketed by the Eta Carinae complex and a much more manageable cluster, NGC 3293.

Eta Carinae was a brilliant orange star that surrounded itself in a plush comfort of nebulosity. This misty region ended abruptly to the south and then emerged again to surround a trio of bright stars. The observation and sketch were done more hastily than I would have liked and I know there was more detail to be extracted from this bright nebula, but I took what I could get. The northwest side of the view was punctuated by the small, bright open cluster, NGC 3293. Four bright stars announced themselves within its glowing boundary of unresolved starlight.

This section of the sky is still beckoning me, and I know I will have to return to it again with more time to spare. Even if I only have binoculars again the next time, it will still offer more than I can possibly absorb.

The sketch was created on Strathmore sketch paper with 2H and HB pencils. Nebulosity was shaded with a blending stump loaded with graphite. Color was added to Eta Carina in Photoshop.

Object Information

Eta Carinae is one of the most massive stars in the universe and is likely greater than 100 solar masses. It is about 4 million times more luminous than the sun, but radiates 99% of this energy in the infrared. Due to its extreme mass, it is expected to go supernova within the next few hundred thousand years. In the meantime, as it rapidly sheds matter, it goes through sporadic, violent outbursts. The most recent outburst peaked in 1843 when Eta Carinae became a magnitude -1 star, second only to Sirius. This eruption generated a rapidly expanding plume of gas that now forms a fascinating dumbell shape.

November Mars in Subtle Salmon

Mars
By John Karlsson

This was a great night, clear and fairly calm for where I live here in Vernon BC Canada. I couldn’t pass up sketching this one. It was late and I had to get up for work at 6:30. I only wish I had better optics to give me some more contrast. I did however use my variable polarizing filter to bring down the contrast. It was glaringly bright.

John

Note: John used Crayola pencil crayons to create realistic color for this sketch. He blended the colors lightly to prevent streaks from showing as much as possible. John layed down a peach base first, and overlapped this with a layer of orange. He applied shading for the dark albedo features using a blending stump loaded with graphite from a 2H pencil.

Precious Moments of Totality

Solar Eclipse
By Serge Vieillard

If you were about to experience the brief but awesome spectacle of a solar eclipse, would you take the time to immerse yourself in a sketch of the event? If you have a passion for sketching astronomical objects and events, you may find yourself attempting what Serge Vieillard did. On March 29, 2006, Serge and 14 other club members journeyed to the Sahara Desert in Libya to view the eclipse. Racing across the dusty landscape in 4x4s to arrive at the site on time, they set up to the southeast of the volcano, Waw Enamous. As the eclipsed deepened, they found themselves entranced by an indescribable atmosphere: the sky darkened, Venus appeared, shadows began to shift, Bailley’s Beads began to sparkle, leading finally to totality. With that, the immense corona blossomed before them while solar prominences emerged and evolved as the moon passed before them.

Rather than photograph this awe inspiring event, Serge chose to harken back to an earlier era of astronomy and he sketched it instead. Because totality would only last 4 minutes, he had to be fast and deliberate in his sketching method, observing with a Kowa 77 mm TSN-2 for wide views of the corona, and a Meade ETX-90 at 100X for viewing the prominences. During those brief 4 minutes, Serge sketched the main contours of the corona, and sketched in the positions of the dancing prominences. Immediately after totality broke, he spent the next several minutes finishing the details of the sketch while it was still fresh in his mind.

Serge used colored pencils to add color to the sketch. However, since he was drawing on white paper and would be inverting it after scanning, he used a technique adapted from his previous color observations and sketches of M42, the Great Orion Nebula. By pre-testing, scanning, and inverting the color values of several pencils, he was able to determine what colors would produce the best color once the sketch was inverted after scanning. The results speak for themselves in this outstanding illustration.

The entry from Serge’s website is included below in the original French. (Google Language Tools may be helpful in translating if you do not read French.) More of Serge’s incredible sketches can be found at his website: ASTRONOMIE AMATEUR OBSERVATION VISUELLE CROQUIS ASTRO.

Eclipse totale du 26 mars 2006, dans le désert Libyen, au sud est du volcan waw Enamous. Une aventure exceptionnelle que nous avons vécue avec 14 copains(es) du club. Découverte d’un pays, du Sahara, d’un autre mode de vie. Course effrénée des 4×4 dans la poussière pour être présent sur le site au bon moment. Une ambiance indescriptible, assombrissement du ciel, apparition de Vénus, des ombres volantes partout, les premiers grains de Bailly, arrachage des filtres et ça y est ! Couronne solaire énorme, nombreuses protubérances dont la visibilité évoluera au fil du phénomène selon de déplacement de la lune. J’ai tenté ce croquis, évoquant à l’ère du numérique une astronomie d’une autre époque, ambiance 1900, à l’oculaire de la longue vue L80 pour la couronne et de l’ETX x100 pour les protubérances. Les 4 minutes sont passées comme un éclair. Je n’ai eu le temps que de marquer au mieux le contour des différents panaches. Tout de suite après la totalité, l’image encore en mémoire, j’ai apporté la texture particulière et les finitions pour ce résultat étrange…