Category: Charcoal

Mars – December 26, 2011

Mars - December 26, 2011
Mars - December 26, 2011

2011 12 26 – Mars
www.pcwobservatory.com
Erika Rix, Ohio, USA

We’ve been fortunate to have a few clear nights for observing lately. Mars season is upon us and it feels great to have a chance to try out my new filter set: Mars, 82A blue and 21 orange.

This sketch is a composite of all three filters. I started off with the Mars filter for an overall view. Syrtis Major was the first area I noticed. Next were the north polar cap and the darkened area around it. Faint structure started to appear but became even more apparent when I switched to the orange filter. Lastly was the blue filter that made the NPC and Hellas pop out dramatically. The following limb was brightened. Seeing was above average with slightly poor transparency. The session had to end because of clouds, but I felt the session was pretty much completed by that time anyway.

The sketch was created using charcoal on card stock, charcoal pencils, willow charcoal, vinyl eraser pencil and kneaded rubber eraser.

Lunar Eclipse – First of 2011

Lunar Eclipse - June 2011
Lunar Eclipse - June 2011

Location: Malta
Date: 15 June 2011
Media (blender, charcoal, pencil colour, white paper, GIMP)
http://znith-observatory.blogspot.com

This is my first composite sketch of a total lunar eclipse that took place yesterday on June 15, 2011. It was the first of two such eclipses in 2011. The second will occur on December 10, 2011.

I used graphite with blender and an orange pencil colour. Sketching was done at the 40mm eyepiece using SCT 8″ f/10. Conditions were clear and seeing was 7/10.

The individual sketches were made on scanned sketches of the full moon. Scanning was done at 600 dpi and processed using GIMP. I enjoyed sketching the various phases of the eclipse especially during the fast-changing penumbral phase.

In my sketches I tried to capture the interesting tonality of the orange colour shading visible over parts of the eclipsed region of the moon.

This was a relatively rare central lunar eclipse, in which the center point of Earth’s shadow passes across the Moon. The eclipse was visible rising over South America, western Africa, and Europe, and setting over eastern Asia.

The Eagle Has Landed

Messier 16
Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula

Hi all,

HOORAY! A clear dark sky!

This was my first visit to Wiruna, the dark sky site of the Astronomical Society of New South Wales (many thanks to Alex Comino for organizing my stay there 😉 ). This was the stomping ground of Scott Mellish, and it was such a great experience to meet some of his friends up there. He is so sorely missed.

Conditions started marvelously. Using my 17.5” dob, my first squiz of M16, had me gasping “There it is! There’s the Eagle!” So clear was the dark pillar system. So much so that I could also make out the distinct highlighted leading edge of the pillars! Even with an OIII filter! So cool!

This sketch of the Eagle took around two hours to complete.

It was also my first use of another treasure of an eyepiece, a Unitron 16mm Konig eyepiece. What a marvelous eyepiece! Not as long in eyerelief as newer eyepieces, but the image is one of the brightest I’ve seen, and easily has a 70* FOV.

Object: M16, The Eagle Nebula

Scope: 17.5” f/4.5 dob, push pull

Gear: Unitron 16mm Konig, 125X, + OIII filter, 33.6’ AFOV

Date: 2’nd June, 2011

Location: Wiruna, Ilford, Australia

Materials: White pastel, black & white charcoal pencils and white ink on A4 size black paper

Cheers,

Alex M.

17.5″, 3 Hours, and the Eta Carina Nebulae

Hi all,

Scope time has been very scarce this year. This sketch was done in April.

Encouraged by my attempt at Eta Carina through my 8″ dob, I trained my 17.5″ dobbie at the same target, again from Sydney.

This time, I also used my Grand Daddy of all eyepieces, a 35mm Masuyama. A bit long for this f/4.5 scope, but my only OIII filter was a 1.25″.

Eta Carina is not only huge, it is a very busy place. There are multiple shockwaves within it, masses of star formation both just initiated in the form of dark pillars, of those whose nuclear fires have just kicked in, nebulae within nebulae, and a super massive star about to go supernova.

This magnificent NASA site shows all of these details.

Again, the Homunculus Nebula is too small at 57X, but the supermassive star, Eta Carina, it is associated with is the bright reddish one.

Armed with a battery of sketching implements, the result of 3hrs is below. Ooooohhh, I am going to have soooooo much fun redoing this one at a dark sky site!

Scope: 17.5″ f/4.5 dob
Gear: 35mm Masuyama, 57X, OIII filter
Date: April 8, 2011
Location: Sydney
Media: white pastel, white & black charcoal pencils, white chinagraph, white and coloured ink on black A4 size paper

Cheers,

Alex M.

Classic Crater

Hi all,

My original intension when I selected the crater Copernicus was to have the terminator line very close to it. I didn’t get my timing right by a long shot! Instead, it was closer to a Lunar mid-day, making the shadows very short.

I was hesitant to sketch it, having my expectations dashed, and took an hour before I decided “What the heck! Just do it”.

Conditions were quite good for Sydney. At the best of times, using 222X is barely useable, giving only fleeting moments of clarity. This night was more good than poor! And an added bonus, NO DEW!

This is the first time I’ve used charcoal and soft pastels to do such a finely detailed sketch. It took a little getting used to, but what I really like about this materials is you can build up the layers to achieve the result you want. I found them very forgiving, unlike the cold.

Two hours, a pot of tea to keep the cold at bay, and a gorgeous orange tube C8, and this is the result.

Object: crater Copernicus
Scope: Orange tube C8
Gear: 9mm TMB Planetary Type II, 222X, + two polarizing filters
Date: 14’th May, 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Conditions: Fair
Media: Black & white charcoal pencils, grey soft pastel pencil, and white ink on black paper, A5 size.

Cheers,

Alex M.

Dedicated to Scott

Dedicated to our beloved friend Scott Mellish…
Aristarchus is one the of the brightest Moon’s crater.
Some people believe that it can be seen with naked eye!!!

Object name: Aristarchus crater
Location: Tehran,Iran
Date: 15 may 2001.
Time: 23:11 local time.
Media: graphite pencil, charcoal and edited with photoshop.
Equipment: Dabsom.8″ Skywatcher.

Clearsky…
Pasha Majidi

A Rushed First Quarter

Hi all,

Time at the eyepiece has been scarce so far this year. And as yet, still no productive time at a dark sky site either. Thankfully we still have the Moon!

This one hour sketch of the first quarter phase of the Moon was a bit of a race. That was all the time I had before the Moon went behind the neighbour’s palm tree, plus conditions were cold and windy. I guess as close to “Extreme Astro Sketching” as I’d like to get to, LOL!

This was also the first sketch undertaken with a real old girl scope, a beautiful early 1980’s orange tube C8. No GPS, no periodic error control, no Go-to, no special lens coatings, doesn’t even make me coffee. Just a little clock drive. Cool.

Object: first quarter phase Moon
Scope: 30 year old C8
Gear: GSO Superview 30mm, 66X
Date: 11th May, 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Conditions: Poor, windy and cold
Media: White and black charcoal pencils, white and black Chinagraph, & graphite pencil on A4 size black paper.

Cheers,

Alex M.