White Conté on Black Paper – Page 6 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

The Sun for Riser

2010 July 3, 1853 UT – 1938 UT
Solar h-alpha NOAA 11084
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix

DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell
Temp: 28.8°C, Humidity 57.7%-49%
Seeing: Wilson 4, Transparency: 3/6
Clear, slight breeze, Alt: 65.6°-58.1°, Az: 231.8°-247.3°
H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Strathmore Artagain paper,
white Conte’ crayon and pencil, black oil pencil, Prang white watercolor
pencil

It appears that I missed seeing a dual pair of CMEs (coronal mass
ejections) on the Sun today. It took at place at 1154 UT. My session
began at 1853 UT. Fantastic footage of it can be seen here by SOHO
coronagraph.
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2010/03jul10/cme_c2_big.gif?PHPSESSID=kljak6da6ng8ifu6v1gf6p7ch3

AR 1084 still looks like a spiral galaxy (or a chicken eye with the wide
yellow/pink skin wrinkled around the pupil). A fantastic
filament/prominence reached over the limb in the SW. The filament was
thick and fibrous reaching out to the west and on either end, long and
slender.

Riser, my regular solar buddy, aka 14-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback, took
a pretty hard fall today and had to watch me observe from a distance in
the comfort of the shade at the top of the hill. He’s resting
comfortably now on a very thick duvet. Poor ol’ boy.

Best regards,
Erika Rix
pcwobservatory.com

Craters: Guericke, Parry, Bonpland and Fra Mauro

On this last evening of Spring, I selected for sketching this region of the moon close to the terminator between Mare Nubium and Mare Cognitum. Four large craters noticeably damaged by low flying Imbrium ejecta formed the subject matter of this sketch. From south to north I sketched crater Guericke (59 km) with its flat lava flooded floor that opens to Mare Nubium. Crater Parry, smaller at 49 km in diameter is older than the former and also flat floored. The other two craters which look ghostly at high sun are larger, even older and share common walls with Parry. These craters are Bonpland (61 km.) to the west and Fra Mauro (96 km.) to the north of Parry. The wall of Parry encroaches on Bonpland and both together on Fra Mauro to betray the cratering sequence. The Apollo 14 landing site would be just beyond the bottom edge of the sketch. Thirty nine and a half years ago the late Alan Shepard Jr. and Edgar D. Mitchell were walking around at Fra Mauro while the late Stuart Roosa orbited the moon in the command module.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: Black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9”x 14”, white and black Conte’ Pastel pencils and crayons, blending stumps, Pink pearl plastic eraser.
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian, 9mm eyepiece 161x
Date: 6-21-2010, 1:15-2:45 UT
Temperature: 20°C (68°F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 19.5°
Lunation: 8.6 days
Illumination 70.6%
Observing Location: +41°37′ +87° 47′

Rűkl: Chart 42 and 43

Frank McCabe

Timocharis

Timocharis Crater
Erika Rix

2010 06 21, 0300 UT
Timocharis
PCW Memorial Observatory, OH, USA
Erika Rix
Zhumell 16”, 8mm TV Plossl, 225 x

Phase: 64.8
Lunation: 8.66. d
Illumination: 71.3%
Lib. Lat: 7°30’
Lib. Long: 4°47’
Az: 215°14’, Alt: 27°21’

This complex crater has a crushed central relief and the area was completely enveloped with shadow. I could make out some of the western terraced walls within the crater. Heinrich (9.5 km), B (5 km) and C (4 km), were very clear as well as a small portion of the wrinkle ridge to the southeast. Timocharis was formed ~ 3.2 to 1.1 billion years ago during the Erathosthenian period. Height is estimated to be 3110 meters. Faint small rays can be spotted with decent seeing conditions.

Sketched scopeside on black Strathmore Artagain paper, charcoal, black wax pencil, white Conte’ crayon and pencils.

H-Alpha Sun and Filaments – May 10, 2010

H-Alpha Sun and Filaments – May 10, 2010
By Erika Rix

2010 May 10, 1355 UT – 1610 UT
Solar h-alpha featuring filaments – Erika Rix
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA
DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell

H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Strathmore paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang watercolor pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

T: 5°C-11°C, H: 45%
S: Wilson 3, T: 3.5/6
Clear/slightly hazy, light breeze
Alt: 40.3-62.8, Az: 101-139.7

Paul had a late night imaging so I brought the dogs outside with me, puppies included, to keep it quiet in the house for him. This, of course, meant lots of extra paws running around the observatory floor instead of just the steady snoring of Riser, my regular observing buddy. The views were shaking so badly that I finally gave up and tore down the rig, resetting it back up in the grass. I should have done that to begin with I suppose since seeing wasn’t the greatest and would have been a lot worse in the observatory, especially with the temps rising so quickly after our freeze last night.

There were quite a few features to concentrate on, but what really caught my eye were two areas of filaments in the NE quadrant. The transparency and seeing were just poor enough that I really struggled with pulling any detail out of the prominences on that section of the limb. I didn’t want to miss out trying to capture them as they reached inward across the disk, forming a beautiful display of soft looking filaments. Then even further inward reaching toward the center, the details were sharper with the next set of filaments.

2010 May 6 Solar Prominences

Solar Prominences – May 6, 2010
Sketch and Details by Erika Rix

2010 May 6, 1900 UT – 2100 UT
Solar h-alpha featuring SE and SW prominences – Erika Rix
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA
DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell

H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Strathmore paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang watercolor pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

T: 27.2°C-21.2°C, H: 57%-64%
S: Wilson 2-4, T: 5.5/6
Clear and calm
Alt: 58.5-37.8, Az: 229.2-259.9

I set up outside of the observatory today since the Sun was moving over the SW tree line and I didn’t want to rush my observing session. I had planned on putting in the cold crops in the garden but just couldn’t resist observing instead.

The active regions and filaments were tempting, but it had been so long since I’ve done close up prominence studies that I decided to concentrate on two limb areas instead. At the beginning of the session, the SW had a larger prominence that looked like a comma hovering over a crooked finger. I decided to move to the SE limb instead because what appeared to be a very bright hedgerow prominence with a smaller prominence beside it, turned out to a very wide set of prominences connected together, with over half of it so faint it was difficult to tease the detail out with the poorer seeing conditions at the beginning of the session.

Seeing gradually improved and I decided to go for a second sketch and just couldn’t help nabbing that comma prominence. It had already changed its shape to where it was no longer a comma, but a large loop instead. I was only able to make out the faintest portion of the loop with my Sol-Survivor cover completely shut around my head and eyepiece.

Shadows of the Lunar Caucasus Mountains

Shadows of the Lunar Caucasus Mountains
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

On Tuesday evening I thought I may spend some time observing Mars and perhaps make a sketch if the seeing was good enough to move to high power. Before pointing my scope at Mars I decided to take a quick look at the moon to see if there was anything interesting going on such as light rays of sunlight illuminating and creeping across the floor of a large crater. I soon forgot about Mars and raced indoors to switch sketching media. I know I can sketch twice as fast using white on black and speed is what I needed to capture the quick changing scene along the terminator. What I spotted was the dramatic shadows of the Caucasus Mountain peaks across the floor of Mare Imbrium. I quickly drew on the black Canson paper a faint, white Conte’ pastel meandering line right at the western edge of the Caucasus mountains and roughly outlined the shape of the shadows before any change in length occurred. At this point I felt I could continue sketching in the normal manner. Craters at the bottom of the drawing such as Cassini were not as light struck when I started this sketch as they appear here since I sketched top to bottom. It took about 75 minutes to complete the basic rendering and I spent an additional 15 minutes cleaning smudges and erasing mistakes that were obvious to me.

Mare Serenitatis is the southeastern illuminated region of the sketch. Over to the terminator on the western side of the view are the two “C” shaped craters Autolycus and Aristillus. Among the shadows in the middle of the sketch is crater Theaetetus and directly below the last long shadow is part of crater Cassini and some of the peaks of the lunar Alps.

I had some fun with this one.

See Rükl- Atlas of the Moon Plates 12 and 13

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: Black Canson sketching paper, 9”x 12”, White and black Conte’ pencils, a blending stump, plastic eraser. After scanning, contrast was increased (+1) using the scanner.

Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 161x
Date: 4-21-2010, 2:00 – 3:15 UT
Temperature: 15° C (49° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co-longitude: 355°
Lunation: 6.6 days
Illumination: 42.7 %

Observing Location:
+41°37′ +87° 47′
Oak Forest, Il.

Frank McCabe

2010 Mar 26 Full Solar Disk

Solar H-Alpha – AR11057
Sketch and Details by Erika Rix

*2010 March 26, 2033 UT.
Solar h-alpha, AR11057.

PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix.

DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell.
H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Canson paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang watercolor pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

SW prominence at first glance looked detached. Increasing mag and waiting for steady seeing, I could make out fainter portions of the prominence that reached the limb. There were a few brighter prominence regions scattered about, but nothing of great significance, especially after the magnificent NW prominence last week.

AR 11057 stood out immediately with two dark areas and bright plage. Panning the FOV brought out another bright plage area on the WNW area just 10 deg in from limb. This could possibly be a remnant of 11056. Toward the southern-middle of the disk, brighter little clusters of plage scattered the area, as well a plage to the NW about 40 deg in from the limb. There were a few filaments but the one that really caught my eye was a wide V-shaped one to the SE. I had to tweak the Etalons to bring out the full structure of what first appeared as a single line of filament.

2010 March 18 Prominence

Solar h-alpha, Active regions 1054, 1056
Sketch and Details by Erika Rix

DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell
H-alpha sketch created scope-side with black Canson paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang watercolor pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

That huge prom was an absolute beauty and I could have spent the entire day sketching it over and over for an animation. As it was, it nearly was so complex that a person could spend too much time on one sketch and end up chasing the changes and never actually complete the sketch.

Dawn Breaking across Crater Schickard

Crater Schickard
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

One of the many large and interesting craters on the visible lunar surface is this 230 km. diameter walled plain crater known as Schickard. This Pre-Nectarian crater is somewhat isolated from craters of equal size. It is the large, shallow floor of Schickard that presents its most interesting features and at the time of this sketch light was just beginning to spread across its floor. Tens of millions of years after this crater formed a much larger impact formed the Orientale basin, blanketing the crater with highland ejecta. This great crater can easily be seen in a modest telescope with good lighting one or two days before full moon.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: Black Canson sketching paper, 14”x 12”, White and black Conte’ pencils, a blending stump, plastic eraser. After scanning, contrast was increased (+1) using the scanner.

Telescope: 13.1 inch f/5.9 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 218x
Date: 2-26-2010, 1:45 – 2:30 UT
Temperature: 21° C (68° F) clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co-longitude: 57.5°
Lunation: 11.98 days
Illumination: 90.4 %

Observing Location:
+41°37′ +87° 47′
Oak Forest, Il.

Frank McCabe

Goldschmidt Rays and the Moon’s North Limb

Plato, Goldschmidt and Northern Limb
Sketch and Details by Deirdre Kelleghan

February 28th / March 1st 2010 23:20 UT – 00 :35 UT
200 mm Dobsonian Telescope FL 1,200
8mm TVP eyepiece = 150X
Goldschmidt rays and the Moons North limb

South is up in this sketch because that is the way I viewed it and sketched it. Pastels & Conte on black paper.

Our beautiful Snow moon was 99 .9 % drenched in the suns light when I went observing on the last day in February 2010. Along the NW limb several craters were on view in the libration zone, it was my intention to make a sketch of these elusive features. They presented on the limb as dark deep long shadows edged with sharp bright lines against the blackness of space.

However while these were interesting, my eye was magnetized toward the brightness of Goldschmidt and its ejecta rays, giving great form to the area. Several of these long dark lines were also on view on the edge of the limb close to Goldschmidt and Herschel . It was so visually interesting to observe the contrasts on the limb when the moon was so full, a black and white merry dance of slow movement and rich structure.

Plato never looked so dark and flat ,its black floor absorbing the suns light when most of the surrounding area was throwing it toward my eye. I adored the tiny pure white rim sections singing in the light. My sketch wandered across part of Mare Frigoris , the area around Plato and includes part of Mons Teneriffe .

—
Deirdre Kelleghan
Vice Char IFAS
Outreach IFAS
National Coordinator Astronomers Without Borders Ireland .
http://www.irishastronomy.org/
http://www.deirdrekelleghan.com/
Tweets by skysketcher