Category: Planetary

Venus on a Cold Winter Night

Venus - January 27, 2012
Venus – January 27, 2012

Object Name: Venus
Object Type: Planet
Telescope: Synta SW 8″ + GSO #15A Filter
Location: Płaza, Poland
Date: 27.01.2012
Media: graphite pencil, white paper, photoshop cs2, inverted

Hello everyone. This is my newest sketch of one of our Solar System planets. I mean Venus as you can see on the picture. This is very bright and beautiful object on the night sky, but it is also quite hard to observing. Apart from this, sometimes we can see a clouds on Venus. When I was sketching it, I saw something a little bit darker than the rest of the planet and I think that it could be that clouds.
What about sky conditions? I can evaluate the seeing at 7/10, the visibility was very good, but the temperature was very low, about -20 Celsius degrees. But there is something amazing when you are sitting next to the telescope, looking at objects that are very far away when your fingers seems to be already frozen 😀

Jupiter – February 10, 2013

Jupiter - February 10, 2013
Jupiter – February 10, 2013

Hello Stargazers,

this is the first time I send one of my sketch to you. Since the beginning of the year, it’s real terrible, cloudy weather here in Germany. One chance was on February the 10th, the sky was pretty transparent with less turbulences. The temperature was frosty, about minus six degrees Celsius. Sitting in a sheltered corner of my garden, the 12 inch dob offers me the beauty of the gas giant.

Object Name: Jupiter
Object Type: Planet
Location: Schwanfeld, Germany
Date: 10th February 2013
Media: graphite pencil on white standard paper

Hope you like it.

Starry regards.
Florian Köhler

Jupiter – February 8, 2013

Jupiter - February 8, 2013
Jupiter – February 8, 2013

Object Name Jupiter
Object Type planet
Location Hungary, Göd
Date 08-02-2013 UT 17 30
Media graphite pencil, white black paper
Equipment: MC 127/1500
Eyepieces: Baader Hyperion
magn: 166x and 122x
Filters: green (500 nm) and blue (470 nm)
Conditions: -1 deg.
Seeing & clarity: cloudy sky

Left 166x and green filter

Right 122x and blue filter

Jupiter and Moons - February 8, 2013
Jupiter and Moons – February 8, 2013

Mars and Mercury

Conjunction of Mars and Mercury
Conjunction of Mars and Mercury

Here join my last watercolour

Object Name (Mars and Mercury)
Object Type (Planet conjunction)
Location (Sainte-Anastasie-sur-Issole, Provence, France)
Date (08-02-2013)
Media (watercolour)

This February 8th between 17h and 18h (UT) I wanted to watch an unusual planets conjunction and set, Mars and Mercury separated by only 15 ‘. This could be seen through the long and wide belt of Venus. I found a peak of 360° free to obstacles – 500 meter altitude. North we see clearly two winter sports resorts and South the Porquerolles Island and its lighthouse – 2 x 10 sec, so… the “M” morse letter, to celebrate our two planets M.. ?
It was cold with a strong wind, I still observed one hour. Some pictures with my little camera and two quick sketches, a complete landscape and an eyepiece vision, in order to be ready to make a watercolour, the day after.
Mercury was bright, clearly visible with a white light. Mars was 8 times less light but very red. No details with my reflector 100/500, plus an eyepiece K12mm. We can just imagine the disc-shaped appearance of the two planets. Mercury was gibbous almost full and very close the tiny and still red planet.

Clear sky to you all !

Michel Deconinck
http://www.aquarellia.com

2012 Saturn

Saturn - March 23, 2012
Saturn – March 23, 2012

Hallo!
This is my last sketch of Saturn.

Object: Saturn
Equipment: SCT 5″
Eyepieces: TS Expanse 8mm / NED 8mm
Filters: Moon & Skyglow,
Date: March 23rd, 2012
Place: Warsaw, Poland
Conditions: Clear skies, light wind.
Seeing & clarity: Unstable. Sometimes bad, sometimes very good.

Greetings!
Aleksander (Wimmer)
http://astro-art.com.pl

Exoplanet KOI-172.02

Exoplanet KOI-172.02 - Artist's Impression
Exoplanet KOI-172.02 – Artist’s Impression

Object Name: KOI-172.02
Object Type: Exoplanet
Location: Lith, the Netherlands
Date: 26-01-2013
Media: Photoshop CS5

Recently, a new planet is discovered by astronomers affiliated with the Kepler Mission Space Observatory. No big deal you might think. Well, it probably is a big deal because this is not a normal planet. KOI-172.02 (what is the scientific name of the object), is a candidate exoplanet that is a so called Super-Earth.

The planet has a radius of 1.54 times that of the Earth, and orbits a sun-like star, named KOI 172. This is a G-type star which is somewhat cooler than our own sun. KOI-172.02 lies within the habitable zone of his star. A zone where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. Scientists claim the exoplanet, if confirmed, could be a prime candidate to host alien life.

Imagine yourself being in a spaceship at approximately 1.040 light years from Earth. You are getting close to the just discovered Super-Earth, and you’ll be the first who will know if this planet contains life or not. Anyway, it will be a unforgettable experience.

Thanks for watching,

Rutger Teule
http://www.rutgerteule.com/

Mars – March 18, 2012

Mars - March 18, 2012
Mars – March 18, 2012

Hi everyone.
I’d like to present you my newest sketch of our Universe. It’s one of Solar System planets – Mars. It’s little small in this year opposition. It’s still beautiful, though. But the good seeing days have gone with coming of spring in Poland. I’m sure it was one of the last days with such a stable air before Mars will move away from Earth. So I decided to perpetuate the Roman god of war.

Object Name: Mars
Object Type: Planet
Location: Płaza, Poland
Date:18.03.2012
Media: graphite pencil, white paper, inverted in Photoshop CS2

C/2012 K5 (LINEAR)

C/2012 K5 (LINEAR)
C/2012 K5 (LINEAR)

• Object Name: C2012 K5 LINEAR
• Object Type: Comet
• Location: Bonilla Spain
• Date: 01/05/2013
• Media: Graphite Pencil HB 2, torchon 1 and 130g drawing sheet
• inverted colors with GIMP 2.8

Observation notes: New 10” dob telescope. Object Elevation +68 º. Male 5,5. -2º C. Moisture 70 º/º.

Greetings to all visitors of this page.
PVG. Alcorcon, Madrid 01/15/2013

Venus In the Seven Sisters

Venus in the Pleiades
Venus in the Pleiades

Object Name: Planet (Venus)
Object Type: Venus in the Pleiades
Location: Bristol
Date 3rd April 2012
Media: Drawn at scope with graphite pencil on white paper then scanned and processed using CS4.

I used an 8″ SCT with a 40mm wide field of view eyepiece. Constructed the final scene via 5 eyepiece sketchs and composited them together. Scans into Photoshop and then remastered.

Weather was good.

Venus was quite dazzling and washed out many of the fainter stars in the M45 cluster, almost as if to announce that she was the real “star”! Venus itself under higher magnification revealed some dusky marks around the terminator. The phase of Venus was approximately half.

Thanks

Chris Lee