To me, Copernicus is the perfect crater. It is large enough to see plenty of detail
with smaller telescopes. It’s terraced inner walls, central mountains, and
surrounding landscape are a lunar sketcher’s dream.
This sketch was done on Strathmore Windpower sketch paper with a 2HB mechanical
pencil. Post processing was done with MGI Photosuite III.
Jason Aldridge
North Port, Florida
I find Messier 5 to be one of the most beautiful globular clusters in the catalog.
Individual stars resolved nicely around a bright core at medium magnification.
This sketch was rendered on standard copy paper with a .5mm mechanical pencil. Post
processing was done with MGI Photosuite III.
Jason Aldridge
North Port, FL
Medium: graphite pencil and ink on white paper. 20inch f/5 Dobsonian at
Warrumbungles Mountain Lodge, New South Wales, Australia during the Deep South Texas Star Party (this is actually held in Australia) in March 2007. Some, obviously, see
a spider in this incredible deep sky object – I on the other hand see a Hollywood
demonic face snarling at us! Rather fun really when looked at from the safety of 170
klyrs away! Magnification was 212x and actual field of view 0.4 deg.
Rob Esson
Australia
This sketch was done on Rite in the Rain paper with colored pencils. I used the
edge of my eraser shield for the bands and blending was difficult with the waxy feel
of the Prang pencils.
An Orion ED80 was used on an LXD75 mount, all of which were on antivibration pads in the observatory. The eyepiece was a Zhumell 21-7mm zoom
Erika Rix
Zanesville, Ohio
Bow Tie Planetary in Northern Cepheus
In the northern reaches of the constellation Cepheus one can find a planetary
nebula designated NGC 40 or Caldwell 2. This planetary has a bright easily seen
11.5 magnitude central star. The star is extremely hot and was formerly a
Wolf-Rayet star that is currently progressing to the white dwarf stage of stellar
evolution. The portion of the nebular shell I could see was round in appearance
and looked to be about 25” of arc in diameter. The shell glows at 11.7 magnitude
and is best seen by averted vision when not using a nebula filter. With a narrow
band light pollution filter, the nebular shell looked brighter and 30% larger. I
found the unfiltered view more pleasing to the eye and sketched the view without a
filter. Photographs of this object show it to have a pair of bright margin ring
arcs in the east-west direction. These arcs and the central star give the nebula a
bow tie like appearance. I was not able to see bright ring arcs under my observing
conditions with a 10” telescope. The shell spans a bit more than one light year across and lies 3500 light years away. Cepheus is in a favorable viewing location this time of year for northern latitudes.
Sketching:
Date and Time: 9-15-2007, 2:30-2:55 UT
Scope: 10” f /5.7 Dobsonian. 21mm and 12mm eyepieces 70x and 121x
8”x 12” white sketching paper, B, 2B graphite pencils, scanned and inverted, star
magnitude adjustments using Paint
Averted vision was a very useful aid in drawing the extent of this planetary nebula.
Seeing: Pickering 7/10
Transparency: above average 4/5
Nelm: 4.7
Frank McCabe
An image of the moon (48% illuminated) was taken by students J. McLaughlin, C.
Keller, and C. Lacroix at the school observatory on September 18th. P. Presby took
that image, projected it, and created a sketch. In the image of the left, his
silloutte appears near the terminator as he contemplates how to proceed; the nearly
completed sketch appears on the right.
John Stetson
NGC 246
The medium used: graphite pencil,
The equipment used: 8″ f/10 SCT. Eyepiece 4mm.
Date: 02-09-2000
Weather: very good conditions, clear and transparency.
Big nebula, faint, perfectly rounded and double.
Field rich in stars even inside the nebula, it looks like an open cluster
with surrounded nebula like a sly double Ring.
Leonor
Arguably one of the finest galaxies for visual observation, M51 shows some structure
with averted vision under moderately light polluted skies. The core of the captured
dwarf galaxy hanging on to the edge of a spiral arm is quite apparent and makes M51
a favorite of many observers.
This sketch was rendered on Strathmore Windpower Sketch paper with a .5mm mechanical
pencil. MGI Photosuite III was used for post processing.
Jason Aldridge
North Port, FL
2007 August 11, 0450 UT
Erika Rix
PCW Memorial Observatory
Zanesville, Ohio USA
NCG 6503
An Orion ED80 was used on an LXD75 mount, all of which were on antivibration pads in
the observatory. The eyepiece was a Zhumell 21-7mm zoom and a WO dielectric
diagonal.
This sketch was done with Rite in the Rain paper, a number 2 and 0.3mm as well as
0.5mm mechanical pencils
