Category: 02_Media

Four Day Old Waning Lunar Crescent

Crescent Moon - February 3, 2014
Crescent Moon – February 3, 2014

An unusually clear winter day here in Chicagoland with high clouds racing towards us in front of our next round of snow. As twilight began the Moon remained at a good altitude for sketching as long as I worked quickly. During this sketch earthshine became exceptional but high thin clouds began to erase the fine view and heavy clouds ended the sketch before I finished.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used black sketching paper (12” x 14”), white and black Conte’ pastel pencils, blending stumps, white Pearl eraser.

Telescope 4.25”f/5 Dobsonian riding on an equatorial platform, 21mm wide field eyepiece 26x
Date and Time: 02-03-2014; 17:30 – 18:25 local time
Seeing: mostly Antoniadi III
Transparency: clear to overcast
Temperature: -6.7 °C (20°F)
Colongitude: 315.8°
Lunation: 3.85 days
Illumination: 20%
Favorable longitudinal libration

Frank McCabe

Freckled Sun

Sun - White Light - February 4, 2014
Sun – White Light – February 4, 2014

Object : Star / Sun
Date : February 04, 2014
Time : 10:30LST / 03:30 UT
Location : Surprise Arizona USA
Medium : Digital sketch done on Iphone with apps
Instruments : Orion 25×100 Binos, William Optics GTF81 APO, 5mm Orion edge-on planetary eyepiece, White light filter, Iphone with PaintFX and Juxtaposer Apps.
Magnitude : -26.7
Weather : 65deg. F, Clear sky (in the morning), no wind and just great day altogether!

Comments: Greetings everyone! Please allow me to bring you this new digital sketch utilizing my Iphone. recently or should I say last month- January. The Sun presented us with one of the biggest sunspots in recent times. That sunspot being AR 1944, It crossed the entire disc of the Sun from our point of view and went all around to reappear again. Well, here I’ve done my best to depict it as it is already under way racing across the face of the Sun. It is now designated AR 1967. It also comes with a fairly huge companion group – AR 1968. As some of you may already know, these freckles on the Sun are ‘cold’ areas comprised of strong magnetic fields capable of hurtling solar flares or coronal mass ejections, CME’s for short. As an added reference, I superimposed an image of the Earth just for size comparison next to those massive sunspots.
Back to the sketch! Are digital sketches or drawings considered a genuine art medium? A medium for sure but I once thought that maybe it’s a bit like cheating. Textures, colors, filters and a plethora of other effects are already predetermined and laid out for you. I’d say, If you get to show and display the view or scene that you have in mind using a digital format and you succeed, then it’s all worth it. I like the the ‘old school’ pad and pencils but i had to give it a try. Enjoy!

Dark and Clear skies,

Juanchin

Supernova 2014L in Messier 99

Messier 99 and SN2014L - February 4, 2014
Messier 99 and SN2014L – February 4, 2014

ASOD – Supernova in M99 sketch – “Kim byong su”

file name – “m99_supernova_Kim Byong su”
object Name – Supernova in M99 sketch
Location – But-gogae Gosong-ri Yangdong-myeon Yangpyeong-gun Gyeonggi-do S.KOREA
Media – pencil, charcoal , white Paper
XQ 10″ Dob / TMB 6mm “208x”

this sketch image 1280 pixel..

140x – Sharp => Looked for a short time(0.2~1.5 seconds)
208x – Cloudy Sharp=> Looked for a long time (2~3 seconds)

Jupiter and Io shadow

Jupiter - December 30, 2013
Jupiter – December 30, 2013

Hello,

I would like to submit a pair of visual observations for consideration.

Many Thanks
Stephen Pedajas

Jupiter
Planet
Hadfield, UK
30 December 2013
21.15 UT
Photoshop digital render from visual observation sketch.

Seeing 3 of 5

TSA102S FL 816 f/8
Delos 4.5
Magnification x181
iOptron MiniTower II

Jupiter and Io Shadow - December 30, 2013
Jupiter and Io Shadow – December 30, 2013

Ghost of California

NGC1499 - California Nebula
NGC1499 – California Nebula

Object Name California Nebula in Perseus – NGC1499
Object Type emission nebula
Location Budy Dłutowskie – small village in central Poland
Date 04.10.2013
Media graphite pencil, white paper, color invert
Telescope Sky Watcher refractor 120/600 + GSO 30mm + TS H-Beta
Seeing 3/5 (medium)
Transparency 3/5 (medium)
NELM 5,5 mag

I heard that this object is extremely hard to observe (in visual, of course). That’s why i decided to try 🙂 I bought TS H-Beta filter which is essential during observations of this faint object.

And I can say, with this filter, nebula is quite easy and obvious to observe. It looks like delicate fog.
But you need rich-field telescope to catch it fully in one FOV – to be precise, minimum 3,5 degree of FOV is necessary. And of course H-beta filter, because without it you will see nothing.

Clear Sky
Łukasz

Three days in the life of crater Philolaus

Philolaus Crater
Philolaus Crater

Three nights in a row clear sky, it doesn’t happen a lot in cloudy Belgium. I guess I was just lucky. Nice to see the changing shadows and libration. I hope you like it too.

Clear skies
Jef De Wit

Object: Philolaus (+ Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Mouchez and Poncelet)
Object type: lunar crater
Location: Hove, Belgium (51°09’ N 4°28’ E)
Date and time: 11-13 January 2014
Equipment: 8 cm refractor (WO Zenithstar 80 FD)
Eyepiece: 3,5 mm Nagler T6 (158x)
Medium: white, gray and black pastel pencils on black paper, scanned, contrast
adjustments with Paint Shop Pro, compilation and text with Paint

Great Nebula in Carina

NGC 3372 and NGC 3293
NGC 3372 and NGC 3293

Object name: NGC 3372 and NGC 3293
Object type: Emission nebula and open cluster
Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Date: January 04, 2014
Media: Digital sketch with adobe photoshop CS2, based on a graphite pencil sketch
Equipment: Celestron astromaster 130EQ, 25mm and 10mm eyepieces

Seeing conditions: moonless, transparency 2/3, Antoniadi III, Bortle 8.

Hello all,

At the end of 2013 I had the opportunity to look once again to a clear southern sky so I decided to go for it in the first days of January. On the early morning of January 4th I went to the whole nebula, this time, through my telescope view.

It was just an amazing view that I could only sketch approximately 80% of the stars I could resolved. I am just concern about the star Eta Carinae: all the information I got about it says that it is a blue variable giant. I´m not sure why is classified like that, if in true it looks like a red giant.

Hope you know the answer.

I have the whole entry (original sketches too) of this observation in my blog.
If eventually you want to see it, here is the adrees:
http://www.pollutedskiesstargazing.blogspot.com/

Thanks to all for watching!!!

LG

Messier 82 and SN 2014J – January 29, 2014

Messier 82 and SN 2014J - January 29, 2014Messier 82 and SN 2014J
Messier 82 and SN 2014J – January 29, 2014

Nombre de objeto ( M82 y SN 2014J )
Tipo de objeto ( Galaxia con SN 2014J )
Ubicación (Observatorio Astronomico ORION)
Fecha ( 29-01-2014- 22:14 T.U )
Medios (lápiz de grafito, carboncillo sobre papel con carta estelar impresa de guide9.0 )

El dibujo se realizo en 1 hora usando un dobsom de 305mm F4.8 usando un ocular explorer cientific de 4.7mm ( 315 X )

La Mg en ese momento de la SN 2014J y que se puede ver en la AAVSO fue de Mg 10.7

SN 2014J 2456687.41682 2014 Jan. 29.91682 10.7 — Vis. TJOB

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Object name (M82 and SN 2014J)
Object type (galaxy with SN 2014J)
Location (Observatorio Astronomico ORION)
Date (29-01-2014 – 22:14 T.U)
Media (graphite pencil, charcoal on paper with printed star chart of guide9.0)

The drawing was done in 1 hour using a 305mm F4.8 dobsom using an ocular explorer cientific 4.7mm (315 X)

The Mg at the time of the SN 2014J and you can see on the AAVSO was 10.7 Mg

SN 2014J 2456687.41682 29.91682 10.7 2014 Jan. – Vis. TJOB