I recently spent a 3 weeks holiday in Mid Sweden (Bergslagens Kanal area). October/November really isn’t the holiday season over there, but it is if you want to enjoy some dark skies. It ‘s very bright during the night in summer.
I had a few crisp clear nights the first week, so was the temperature at night (freezing -6.5°C to -8°C). The other 2 weeks were either too cloudy or too humid for decent observation.
Until the last night, which showed the milky way 180° from SE to NW. Never saw that before. Of course all the gear was packed already for leaving the next morning, so typical .. So I had to use my old 7×50 that night.
All in all, I was able to make 10 good sketches in 3 nights only, a poor result unfortunately.
Objekt Name: M45
Object Type: Open Cluster
Location: Stegersbach Austria
Date: 09. Nov. 2012 from 19:20 to 20:10 CET
Media: graphite pencil, white paper
Equipment: 105/500 APO, EQ 6
Observer: Markus Vertesich
Stock 2
Object Type: Open Cluster
Location: Barcelona – Spain
Easy for small telescopes and binoculars, Stock 2 is a wide open cluster situated in Cassiopeia. Is a good target after a visit to the famous Perseus Double Cluster. Don?t forget STTA 26, a double star with twins components (yellow and white) in the same Stock 2 field of view.
Stock 2 – Open Cluster
Date and Time: 2012-11-15, 21h 55m UT
Telescope: SC Celestron Nexstar 5i (127mm) with Celestron focal reducer f6.3.
Eyepiece: Hyperion Aspheric 31mm (25.40x)
White paper, HB2 graphite pencil, and scanned and inverted with Photoshop
Seeing: 4/5 (5 the best)
Transparency: Clear. A little light pollution.
Location Constellation: Cassiopeia
Position: R.A. 02 h 15 min
Dec. +59° 16′
M8 (the Lagoon Nebula). A very large and bright nebula sketched in Warren county NJ on 09/16/2012. Sketched on a laptop computer at the eyepiece.
Orion Astroview 100 Refractor F/6 32mm Plossl 19x.
Open cluster in the constellation Scorpius containing 80 stars, Tr Type I 3 r, 017h 53.9m, -34deg49´, 80´, m3.3v, distance 820 ly, diameter ~20 ly.
In the 2nd century A.D., Ptolemy noted M7 and M6 as little clouds (unaided eye). Charles Messier cataloged it in June 1764. It’s located as a brightened haze between the “sting of Scorpius” and the handle of the teapot asterism in Sagittarius, just SE of M6.
M7 was fairly low on the horizon just above the sky glow from Austin to the south. Altitude was 28 degrees at the beginning of the sketch then lowered to 19 degrees by the end of the observation. The wide FOV of the 38mm Titan gave wonderful views nonetheless. The faintest stars were difficult to see and I detected them with averted vision. Once they were located, I could see them straight on. The center of the open cluster was “cross-shaped” at first site. Once the fainter stars were plotted in the sketch, the cross turned into two arcs touching in the middle (one facing north, the other south) with opened ends pointed away from each other. I wish I could say that star color was noted, but other than a couple that perhaps had slight orange tinges, they were all fairly similar color-wise to me.
Sketch created with AL template, #2 graphite pencil, super-fine Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen “S”, 0.5mm mechanical pencil.
Object: Latysev 2 (possible moving cluster, UMa)
Date: 14. March 2007.
UT.: –
Equipment: 10×80 TZK binocular
Mag.: 10x
FOV: 6˚ x 6˚
Observer: János Gábor Kernya
Location: Sükösd, Hungary
Latysev 2:
„This is a possible moving cluster of seven stars, first suggested by Latyshev (1977). It was identified by considering the space motion of several nearby (GJ, or Gliese Catalogue) stars in this area. The stars cover an area of 3˚ by 3,5˚, including primarily the line of four bright stars between ζ UMa (Mizar and Alcor) and the galaxy M101. These are 81, 83, 84 and 86 UMa. The other 3 stars are HR 5169, HD 234064, and HD 234073. The magnitude range is from V = 4.66 (83 UMa) to V = 10.3 (HD 234073), summing to V = 3.67 and B = 4.05.
Brent A. Archinal – Steven J. Hynes: Star Clusters
(Willmann-Bell, Inc.)
M45, Les Pléiades
Open cluster + reflexion nebula
Mont d’ Or (1415m) , Rochejean, Franche-Comté, France.
november 14th 2012.
HB pencil on aquarel paper
inverted and colorized with Gimp 2.6
12″ f/4 Orion Optics dobsonian telescope
magnification : 49 X
Paracorr + Astroprofessional UWA 28 mm field 82°
