Category: 02_Media

The Sun Is a Star

The Sun Is a Star
The Sun Is a Star

From time to time, with friends, we animate minor scientific events in small Provencal villages.

Today March 19th we were in Varages with the local AAP astro club. Fifty kids and residents came to have a look at our star’s volatile proms in H-alpha and some nice spots archipelago’s in WL. We used 3 refractors, a Lunt 35mm a Coronado 60mm and a classical 102/1000 for the WL. The annexed sketch was done in H-alpha, directly on site, to show to the spectators, what can be seen through our material. In parallel some of our wife’s are trying to explain that our sun is a star.

Clear sky to you all !
http://astro.aquarellia.com/

Michel Deconinck

•Object Name (Sun and event)
•Object Type (Star !…)
•Location (Varages Provence France)
•Date (2014 March 19th)
•Media (graphite pencil for the sun, ink for the audience, white paper)

The Great VY Canis Majoris

VY Canis Majoris
VY Canis Majoris

Hello again ASOD! I sketched this one in the same night of the Homunculus. That night i was amazed with the gas and dust of stars. VY Canis Majoris has less surrounding gas but its nice to see the shape of a “Little Homunculus”. Best regards. Leo

•Object Name: VY Canis Majoris.
•Object Type: Red hypergiant star.
•Location: San Miguel, Buenos Aires Argentina.
•Conditions: NELM 4.8-5.1. Good transparency, acceptable seeing. Moonset (Waxing Gibbous).
•Date: 12/01/2014 1:30 am.
•Media: 2H, HB, blend stump and PS.
•Equipment: Meade LB 12″ on equatorial tracking platform. Plossl 6.3mm.

PS: Image of the star: http://imageshack.com/a/img18/5883/d6nf.jpg. Credits to responsible.

Posidoniu​s: a FFC crater

Posidonius crater-March 7, 2014
Posidonius crater-March 7, 2014

Hi

This is a sketch of the crater Posidonius made trought my 6” achromatic refractor (TS Individual 152/900), binoviewer, a pair of 10 mm eyepieces (BCO´s) and Barlow that gave me 330x. The seeing was very poor at the beginning of the session but it was improved until I could get very stable view of this formation.

Posidonius is a beautiful crater that can be classified as a FFC crater (Floor Fractured Crater). It has several fractures on its floor that can be observed with small telescopes, and also the amazing Rima Posidonius, a lava channel that crosses the crater from north to south on the eastern part of the crater. The origin of this kind of FFC´s is controversial but the modern theories suggest that a magmatic intrusion below the crater bulged and fractured the floor.

The complex pattern of the shadows and the variety of characteristics and formations inside Posidonius make this crater a very interesting observation target for any amateur astronomer.

I hope you to enjoy with this sketch.

•Object Name: Posidonius crater
•Object Type: Lunar crater, FFC crater
•Location: Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country)
•Date: 7-3-2014
•Media: graphite pencil on white paper, captured with digital camera and processed with Gimp.

If you wish to read more about this observational report and others, please visit the web of my astronomical group (www.laotramitad.org).

Best regards.

David Sedano

The Smoke Ring

M57, The Ring Nebula
M57, The Ring Nebula

Hey ASOD!

This time I send you my observation of the wellknown planetary M. 57 in Lyra.

The centralstar was not seen in my telescope, but the ring is allways beautiful to see!

The west and the eastern “ends” of the ring was more diffuse, and the northern

part of the ring brighter and sharper. Info on my sketch.

The sketch was made with watercolor crayons on black paper.

Location: Trondheim, Norway.

Best wishes from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Mooncrate​r Krieger

Lunat crater Krieger-March 13, 2014
Lunar crater Krieger-March 13, 2014

Hello friends of the dark side,

Last week we´ve had some good conditions to observe the moon and his fantastic craters. Near the Schröter-Valley I enjoyed the sight of the crater Krieger.

I hope you like it too:

CS Uwe

Object: “Moon”

Object Name: “Crater Krieger”

Telescope: 10″ ACF

Magnification: 18mm Baader Genuine Orthos in Binocular 180x

Date: 13.March 2014

Location: near Tauberbischofsheim Germany

Io’s transit of Jupiter

Io Transit-8-Jan-2014 & 9-Jan-2014
Io Transit-8-Jan-2014 & 9-Jan-2014

This was my first time seeing a transit in the Jovian system….
The bands came a little tilted in the first sketch due to change in observing orientation…..

Location: Bangalore, India.
Date: 8-Jan-2014
Time: ~11:40PM…
Media: HB Graphite pencil(Click pencil), Eraser.
Instrument: 130mm f-6.9 Newtonian.

Regards,

Santhosh.

Messier 106 and NGC 4248

Messier 106 & NGC 4248
Messier 106 & NGC 4248

Hi ASOD, shipping this sketch of the last observation of the past month. With a good night’s transparency and stability, with many details in M 106 as his arms as S as never could see, but more rewarding was seeing the small companion galaxy NGC 4248 somewhat weak but detected no problems, perhaps the light of the main galaxy eclipse the detail of the small but very surprised.

Best regards.

Object name: Messier 106 & NGC 4248
Object type: Galaxy
Location: Bonilla Cuenca ( spain )
Date: 22 February 2014
Hour: 23:20 < 23:50
Media: graphite pencil, processed and inverted gimp 2.8
Optical equipment: Dobsonian telescope Meade Lightbridge 10'' F/5 Eye piece Ethos 13mm
Magnification 97x True field 1°
Sky conditions: calm wind, good transparency. Temperature -1,3°C / 29,6 F RH 76%

http://dibujodelcielonocturno.blogspot.com.es/ web site

Aristarchus, Prinz and the Harbinger Mtns.

Aristarchus, Prinz and the Harbinger Mountains-June 20, 2013
Aristarchus, Prinz and the Harbinger Mountains Region-June 20, 2013

The kilometer high rim of Prinz (47 km.) crater was casting a shadow across its own lava flooded floor. The uplifted Harbinger mountains were also casting fine shadows in this region of the lunar surface with its large magma ponds pushing up and freezing in the distant past. The uplifting doming in the region created many fissures for lava escape and flooding to occur. The fissures can be seen clearly on nights of steading seeing. I was denied that detailed view on this night. From the crater Krieger (22 km.) north and somewhat east of Aristarchus (40 km.) four distinct long shadows could be seen crossing to the 70 km. fault called Toscanelli at the edge of the Aristarchus plateau where the terminator was located during the rendering of this sketch.
A fine view in any telescope.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Canson paper, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils and blending stumps, white Pearl eraser
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece 161x
Date: 06-20-2013, 02:40 – 04:10 UT
Temperature: 19° C (68° F)
Partly cloudy, hazy
Seeing: Antoniadi IV (poor)
Frank McCabe