cluster – Page 4 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Floating on the Rivers of Night

NGC 7769, NGC 7770 and NGC 7771 Galaxies in Pegasus
Sketch and Details by Ferenc Lovró

I’ve sketched this fantastic trio of galaxies during the Meteor Star Party 2009 in Tarján, Hungary. The two larger ones are the face-on NGC 7769 and the edge-on 7771, both with softly brightening cores. Next to 7771 a small fuzzy object is visible, which surprises me, since my printed star map (TriAtlas B, with a limiting magnitude of about 12) shows no other objects than the two large galaxies at this area of sky. But as I can clearly make out this bright diffuse spot, I place it on the sketch and can’t wait to find out what I really saw. It turns out to be the NGC 7770, another faint galaxy of 13.6m. This value I find a bit misleading, because visually its surface is not this much fainter than its two larger companion galaxies. This discovery makes me really happy, just like when I rediscovered NGC 5981 of the Draco Trio. SQM reading: 20.91 m/arcsec^2.

Sketching:

Constellation: Pegasus
Right ascension: 23h 52m; Declination: 20° 10′
Date/time: 2009.08.20 21:30 UT
Equipment: 12″ f/5 Newtonian
FoV: 32′ Magnification and filter(s): 100x
Seeing: 4/10 Transparency: 5/5
Observer: Ferenc Lovró
Location: Tarján, Hungary

Necklace of Nebulae

The Pavo Group of Galaxies
Sketch and Details by Scott Mellish

From left to right: IC 4970/NGC 6872/ PGC 64439/ NGC 6876/ NGC 6877/
NGC 6880/ IC 4981
Galaxies
24/07/09
Ilford NSW Australia
56cm f5 Dobsonian
Field: 27′
Magnification: 218x
Sky quality meter reading: 21:64

This has always been a nice collection of galaxies to visit in Pavo.
Sometimes with a sketch it can be a bit confusing sorting out which
galaxies are which.
Hopefully I have got all their designations correct.

Scott Mellish

Three for the Lion

The Leo Triplet: M65, M66 and NGC 3628
Sketch and Details by Diego Gonzalez

Hello,

This is my first submission to ASOD although I am a long time reader of the website. Here is an sketch and small report of the Leo triplet I made last spring from my home in cloudy northern Spain.

The Leo Triplet is easy to find south of bright star Theta Leonis. M 65 and M 66 are seen without much difficulty south of a 7th magnitude star, but under my sky conditions NGC 3628 requires more attention.

M 66, the easternmost of the Messier galaxies, lies next to a group of four stars ranging from 10th to 11th magnitude. The galaxy has a bright nucleus and an elongated halo running NNW-SSE, small and well visible, that is gradually lost in the dark sky. The other Messier galaxy, M 65, has an orientation and size very similar to its companion, but its look in the eyepiece is different. I canâ€™t see a prominent nucleus and the brightness seems rather uniform but increasing slightly towards the center.

NGC 3628 is a bit more difficult than its companions, and I need 45x to make it visible, although the best view comes at 77x (Hyperion 13mm eyepiece). The galaxy is a faint spindle, very elongated in E-W direction. It is noticeably bigger than the Messier galaxies and creates a beautiful contrast with them.

Using my Panoptic 22mm eyepiece, I can see all three galaxies in the same field of view, making it a wonderful view. The three galaxies are Hubble type Sb, but each one has its own features that make it different from the others at the eyepiece. The average distance to the Leo Triplet is about 30 million light-years.

Sketch: 2HB graphite pencil on white paper, scanned and processed with Photoshop Elements 2.0
Object Name: The Leo Triplet: M 65, M66 and NGC 3628
Object Type: Galaxy group
Location: Asturias, Spain
Date: 22th March, 2009
Instrument: 120mm f/8,3 refractor + Panoptic 22m eyepiece (45x)

Regards
Diego Gonzalez

Three for the Price of One

The Leo Triplet, M65, M66 and NGC 3628
Sketches and Details by Jeff Young

This is a large-format sketch of the Leo Triplet. The field stars and galaxy positions were drawn from observations through a Takahashi FC-100 at 67X, while the individual galaxy details are from 3 separate sketches through 16” cats (M66 and NGC3628 through my old Meade SCT at 175X, and M65 through my newer APM Mak at 150X).

I scanned the original sketches and increased the contrast, and then printed them to the same scale. The printouts were taped together with the final 12” x 16” sketch paper, and the field stars and galaxy positions were traced with the help of backlighting from a window.

I then copied the galaxy details by hand from the original sketches.

There’s a bit more noise in the final result than usual because the larger format wouldn’t fit my scanner and I had to take a picture of it with my digital camera.

The Leo Triplet (M65, M66 and NGC3628)

Daler Rowney HB pencil on Daler Rowney A3 150 gsm cartridge paper

Sketched from County Louth, Ireland

Cheers,

— Jeff.

Ursa Major Triplet

M81, M52 and NGC 3077 in Ursa Major
Sketch and Details by Jef De Wit

M81 and M82 are an impressive duo. But a lot of people don’t know that there is a third galaxy in the neighbourhood (NGC 3077, magnitude: 9,8, surface brightness: 13,2). Even in a small telescope (like my 2,75 inch refractor) you can easily see a lot of detail in this trio.

M81 is the biggest and best visible of the three, M82 is a little less bright than M81 and NGC 3077 was only visible with averted vision. Nice are also the differences in form. NGC 3077 is round, M81 is oval (elongated NW-SE) and M82 is oblong (elongated NE-SW). M81 is the only galaxy with a bright nucleus and a big difference in brightness between the core and the outer halo, M 82 has a less difference in brightness and NGC 3077 is uniform, without any detail.

The problem making this sketch was that I couldn’t see the three galaxies at once in the wide angle eyepiece. To see the edge I had to look around the corner. This made it (for me) difficult to position the stars. Normally I limit a sketch to the field of view I can see at once.

Once inside I made some brightness adjustments to the stars and finished the galaxies with the use of a blending stump (at the eyepiece I work with contour lines). After scanning I did some cleaning up with Paint.

I hope you like this “Ursa Major Triplet”.

Clear skies

Jef De Wit

Object Name: M81, M82 and NGC 3077

Object Type: galaxies

Location: Buis-les-Baronnies, France (44°16 north Lat. 5°16 east Long.)

Date and time: 15 April 2009 around 1.15 UT

Equipment: Meade ETX-70 (2,75 inch refractor)

Eyepiece: 7mm Nagler type 6 (FOV 1,6° and magnification 50x)

NELM: 5,7 mag

Medium: graphite pencils HB/2 and 8B, blending stump, printing paper, scanned and inverted, some cleaning up was made with Paint

Many Beautiful Galaxies

Virgo cluster galaxies
Sketch and Details by Janusz Krysiak

Hi!

These are galaxies M86, M84, NGC 4387, NGC 4388, NGC 4402, NGC 4413, NGC 4425, NGC 4438,and NGC443.

I made this sketch in Pyrnik (Poland) on 17.04.2009. I used telescope Sky Watcher 12″(newton), LVW 22mm, pencil and paper. I had beatiful, black country sky.

Janusz Krysiak

A Stunning Leo Triplet

The Leo Triplet: NGC 3628, M65, M66
Sketch and Details by Dale Holt

Last week using the 14″ Newt & Watec Camera, I sketched each member of the Leo Triplet individually. There is only a very small FOV using the camera with this scope but the detailed revealed is quite incredible. Have made 3 individual sketches I asked my very good friend & accomplished planetary imager Simon Kidd if he could make up a composite for me in Photoshop and add some field stars. He duly did this (something I couldn’t contemplate doing myself!)

If I do say so myself the result is pretty impressive, what do you guys think?

Sketches made using black conte pastel & blending stumps on white cartridge paper, scanned and inverted to white on black. All the magic is then carried out by simon 🙂

Let me know what you think? Dale

A Handful of Peculiars

Arp 229
Sketch and Details by Jeff Young

Here’s another entry from Halton Arp’s catalog of Peculiar Galaxies: Arp 229. (I believe Arp’s designation applies only to the central galaxies in my sketch.)

I thought this made a particularly interesting view as the galaxies are quite varied even though there’s not really any structure visible in my instrument. From the top, we have NGC499 which presents an elongated, well-condensed core, followed by the bright over/under pair of NGC508 and 507, both of which present semi-stellar cores. The little guys around that pair, clockwise from the center of the sketch are IC1687 with no core visible, MCG+05-04-048 with a dim semi-stellar core visible, and NGC504 with a bright stellar core. Lastly is IC1685 in the lower left, which is quite bright but shows no core at all.

Sketched 11/30/2008 from County Louth, Ireland,
as viewed through a 16” Mak-Cass @ 150X; Pickering 5, NELM 5.5, SQM 20.4.
Daler-Rowney HB Graphic pencil on white cartridge paper. Scanned and inverted in Photoshop.

Cheers,

— Jeff.

String of Pearls

Arp 331, “The String of Pearls”
Sketch and Details by Jeff Young

Here’s something a bit off the beaten path: Arp 331, comprising a string of NGC galaxies in Pisces.

My sketch shows NGC383 in the center, with NGC380 and then NGC379 to the N. Somewhat dimmer are NGC385 and NGC384 to the S, with the averted-vision-only NGC386 in between (the dimmest one captured on the sketch). I missed NGC382 (which was too close to NGC383 to differentiate), and NGC388, which was too dim for my instrument and conditions.

Sketched 11/27/2008 from County Louth, Ireland,

as viewed through 16” Mak-Cass @ 150X; Pickering 8, NELM 5, SQM 20.4

Daler-Rowney HB Graphic pencil on white cartridge paper. Scanned and inverted in Photoshop.

Before Two Become One

NGC 2207 and IC 2163
Sketch by Eiji Kato, text by Frank McCabe

This remarkable sketch was made by Eiji Kato using a 47 cm. f/4 reflector and looking out to a distance measured to be 114 to144 million light years. These beautiful, large, interacting spiral galaxies are located in the constellation of Canis Major at R.A. 6 hrs.16 min.22 sec.; Dec. -21° 22′ 21”. The smaller of the two IC 2163 is about the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. Both members were discovered by John Herschel in 1835. Supernova hunters may be familiar with this pair since the brighter, larger member NGC 2207 has been the site of three supernovas in the past 33 years. The visual magnitudes of these galaxies are 12.2 (IC 2163) and 11.6 (NGC 2207). The nuclei of theses spirals are about 1.4′ of an arc apart. In time, galactic cannibalism will complete the merging of this pair.

Hubble Heritage Image from November of 1999 http://heritage.stsci.edu/1999/41/big.html