Planetary – Page 37 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Mars – January 10, 2010

Mars – CM 262 – January 10, 2010
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

Mars: January 10, 2010

It was a cold, mostly clear, moonless, night with Mars high in the southeastern sky. Mars was very bright at visual magnitude -1, 98% illuminated and 65.1 million miles from us. The visual diameter of the planet was 13.4″of arc and the central meridian was at 292°.
The first sketch, a graphite drawing, was made at the eyepiece over a one hour interval. When I returned indoors I redrew the sketch in color pencils. When the second colorized sketch matched the eyepiece sketch I stopped and considered it complete.
The seeing was about average (Antoniadi III). Mars is inverted in the sketch and matches the Newtonian view with the north polar cap down and the preceding side to the left.
From top (south) to bottom (north) along the meridian I was able to see with certainty Hellas, Iapygia Viridis, Syrtis Major, Casius and much of Utopia. Also visible in the southern hemisphere were Mare Tyrrhenum, Mare Sepentis, and part of Sinus Sabaeus. In the northern hemisphere I could see intermittently Nodus Alcyonius and Boreo Syrtis.

Sketching:

White sketching paper 8″ x 11″; HB graphite pencil, blending stump for blending orange, brown and yellow Crayola pencil shavings. No adjustments were needed after scanning.
Date 1/10/2010 – Time 3:45-4:45 UT
Telescope: 13.1 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 333x
An UltraBlock Narrowband filter was helpful with some of the fainter features.
Temperature: -17°C (1°F)
clear, calm
Transparency 4/5
Seeing: Antoniadi III

Frank McCabe

Mars – January 7, 2010

Mars – January 7, 2010
Sketch and Details by Christian Gros

Bonjour,

Ce dessin a été réalisé à l’aide d’une lunette 120ED avec des grossissements allant de x150 à x360, par bonnes conditions mais par un froid polaire de -10°C !
Je me suis servi de crayons pastels sur feuille noire.

Object Name : Mars
Object Type : Planet
Location : Besançon / France
Date : 7 janvier 2010

Salutations

Christian Gros

Google Language Tools Translation:

Hello,

This drawing was made using a telescope 120ED with magnifications from x150 to x360, with good conditions but by a polar cold of -10 ° C!
I used pencil crayons on black paper.

Object Name: Mars
Object type: Planet
Location: Besançon / France
Date: January 7, 2010

Greetings

Christian Gros

Early January Mars

Mars – CM 3.2°
Sketch and Details by Carlos E. Hernandez

I made an observation of Mars on January 3, 2010 (06:00 U.T.) under average seeing conditions with brief moments of steadier seeing. I was unable to view the planet in blue light as clouds prevented me from doing so shortly after my IR/Magenta filter observation.

Date (U.T.): January 3, 2010
Time (U.T.): 06:00
CM 003.2* W
Ls 32.7* (Northern Spring/Southern Autumn)
De 17.7*, Ds 13.1*, phase 97%, 12.9″
Instrument: 9-inch (23-cm) F/13.5 Maksutov-Cassegrain
Magnification: 295x
Filters (Wratten) 30 (Magenta)
Seeing (1-10): 5 (brief moments of 6-7), Antoniadi (I-V) III
Transparency (1-6): 4

Notes:
The North Polar Cap (NPC) was brilliant (10/10) without any detail visible within it. A projection from the NPC is visible over it’s southern border (following the CM). Sinus Sabaeus (3-5/10) and Sinus Meridiani (3-4/10) were visible on and preceding the CM. No haze/cloud is visible over Edom (7/10) at this time. Arabia/Aeria/Eden appear bright (7/10) but no other detail is visible over these regions. Deucalionis Regio appears bright (7/10) and Pandorae Fretum appears dusky to dull (4-5/10) whereas Noachis is obscured by a very bright (8/10) Evening Limb Haze (ELH). Cecropia (and Ortygia appear dark to dusky (3-4/10). Mare Acidalium appears dark to dusky (3-4/10) and Niliacus Lacus (3-4/10) separated by a bright (7/10) haze over Achillis Pons. Margaritifer Sinus, Mare Erythraeum, and Aurorae Sinus appear dark to dusky (3-4/10) and mottled. dusky (4/10) projections are noted to extend from the northern borders of Mare Erythraeum. Chryse/Xanthe appears bright (7/10) with a faint haze over it. An extremely to very bright (8-9/10) Evening Limb Haze (ELH), Morning Limb haze (MLH), and Southern Limb Haze (SLH) are visible.

A digital image produced using Pixelmator.

Mars – December 28, 2009

Mars – CM 313°
Sketch and Details by Kris Smet

Finally some good seeing tonight, i had a beautiful view of syrtis major, hellas, sinus sabaeus and the north polar region. finally some subtle darkness differences in syrtis major could be made out; where mare tyrrhenum runs into syrtis major and the northern tip was dark and kinda triangular. the little ‘bended hook’ was also visible. sinus sabaeus was also a bit darker. after a while i thought to see some irregularity in the npc/nph border, like a bit of it sticking out, slightly isolated.
Lybia & Aeria showed as bright patches, i guess Lybia could be clouded because it showed up brighter in blue light than Aeria.
the deucalionis region (in between sinus sabaeus and noachis) also looked brighter, but i think that might just be due to the it’s position between two darker areas.

Hopefully we can get a few more nights like this in january! it’s good sessions like these which make you forget previous frustrating views

I used my 8″ dob for this one @ 357x without filters.
the sketch is simply scanned and a bit unsharpened, no further color, brightness or contrast enhancements.

location: bornem, belgium

Mars in Color – December 27, 2009

Sketch and Details by Krzysztof Jastrzebski (jarzbi)

Object Name: Mars
Object Type: Planet
Location: Poland – Skawina
Date: 27.12.2009

Hello,
This is my pencil sketch improved in Gimp (cat white paper background,
set contrast an colorized). I made it with Synta 8″ dobs, vixen NLV 6mm
and polarization filter Baader. Mars without filter was to bright.

Unstable Spots

Mars – December 27, 2009
Sketch and Details by Ignisdei (Robert Twarogal)

Hi!
Yesterday at 23.00 Mars was in a high altitude
The telescope was in the garden from the afternoon, so it was perfectly chilled.
Meade LB 305/1524 + Pentax XL 5.2 mm, it gave me the power 293x ..

That set proved to be insufficient, to trapping delicate and fragile spots on small disk. So, to make a greater detail I used Barlow 1.6x from Bino WO. It was already almost 469x.
But still the view was too bright. To increase contrast i used Orion Ultrablock.
Pentax XL is a great planetary glass. Wide field whit good correction, allowed me “to pass” the planet from the diaphragm to diaphragm a lot of times (You know – Dobson 🙂 )
What I saw was again alchemy of looking. Spots were unstable, as the atmosphere through I looked at it.
The first thing I could see (in Newton inverted view), was white polar caps on the bottom and eastern shore – shining bright!
The a dark spot on the pole, slowly narrowed towards the top in “s-shaped.” I am not 100% sure that I saw a dark “box” at the opposite side….
I apologise for my imagination 😉

Yours Robert

Object Name: Mars and unstable spots 🙂
Object Type Planets, Mars
Location (Oborniki, suburbia, Poland)

Date (27-12-2009)
Equipment: Meade LB12″ + Pentax XL 5,2mm, WO Barlow 1,6X

Autor: Ignisdei (Robert Twarogal)

Mars – December 26, 2009

Mars – December 26, 2009
Sketch and Details by Krzysztof Bednarek (Scaiter)

Hello.
Here is my sketch of the planet Mars, the current diameter is 12.2 arc”
White paper, sketching, graphite pencil, HB
date of 26 December, the telescope Vixen achromat NP-80L, Soligor 9 mm eyepiece (133x) -2 * C temperature, transparency 3 / 5. Lodz, Poland.

An Alignment of Giants

Jupiter-Neptune Conjunction
Sketch and Details by Jeff Young

This pairing nearly got the better of me: I forgot all about it on Sunday night and Monday evening started out cloudy. However, it cleared at about 7pm and I headed out to the observatory — only to find the pair behind clouds again by the time I had the scope pointed. But I stuck at it, and the clouds cleared just as the pair started to set. (In fact, the sketch was done looking through the empty branches of a tree on my horizon.)

HB pencil on 150gsm cartridge paper. Sketched through a 16” Mak-Cass at 110X from County Louth, Ireland. Scanned and inverted and colourized in Photoshop.

— Jeff.

Into the Depths of the Solar System

Conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Neptune
Sketch and Details by Peter Mayhew

Object name: Moon, Jupiter, Neptune
Object type: Conjunction
Location: York, UK
Date: 21st December 2009

I had to cycle home from work especially quickly on the icy roads in time to sketch this solar system trio before they sank below the trees. The sketch spans about 5 degrees of sky, with the 5-day crescent moon at the bottom (north) and Neptune and Jupiter with the Galileans at top. I observed them all at 18:00 UT through my Skywatcher Skyliner 150mm f8 Dobsonian with a 25mm eyepiece, repositioning the scope several times to include them all, and had to do this in about ten minutes before they sank from sight. Later I tidied the sketch up (graphite pencil on white paper) and reversed the colours and added labels. The field of view spans the closest heavenly body to us, as well as the farthest planet and the largest planet and helps give a sense of scale to our solar system family.

Mars – December 16, 2009

Mars – December 16, 2009, 9:45 – 10:15 UT
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

Mars December 16, 2009

It was a cold, clear, moonless, early morning with Mars high in the southern sky. The mirror of the telescope took some time to cool down as the temperature continued to drop on this night and early morning. Mars was very bright at visual magnitude -0.4, 93% illuminated and 77.5 million miles from us.
My fingers were numb in just 10 minutes of sketching so I was inside at 10 minute intervals to thaw them.
I decided to make a graphite field sketch and when I finished I converted it to a color pencil sketch indoors. After completing the color sketch I returned to the scope with the sketch to check for accuracy and then concluded.
I did not spend any time trying filters and the seeing was about average (Antoniadi III). Mars is inverted in the sketch with the north polar cap down and the preceding side to the left.
Don’t miss a chance to have a look.

Sketching:

White sketching paper 8″ x 11″; HB graphite pencil, soft charcoal pencil for sky background, blending stump for blending orange and yellow Crayola pencil shavings. Brightness decreased at scanning by -2 using scanner
Date 12/16/2009 – Time 9:45-10:15 UT
Telescope: 13.1 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 222x
Temperature: -19°C (-2°F)
clear, calm
Transparency 4/5
Seeing: Antoniadi III

Frank McCabe