Planetary – Page 51 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Captivating Conjunction

Moon, Venus and Jupiter Conjuction
By Carlos E. Hernandez

Moon, Venus, and Jupiter

On February 5, 2008 (11:35 U.T.) I was able to view a very thin Waning Crescent Moon (27.9 days old) visible floating above (~5 degrees) a lavender cloud covered southeastern horizon. Venus was a very bright beacon (-3.97m) 12.2 degrees southwest of the Moon. Jupiter was a bright pastel orange-white star (~-1.87m) 4.0 degrees southwest of Venus. The southeast horizon exhibited pastel yellow to orange colors. I hope that others were able to view this pairing as well.

A digital image produced in Corel Painter X.

The Many Faces of a Red Desert World

Mars opposition 2007/8 and composite sketch
By Marcin Marczyński

Mars opposition 2007/8

These superb sketches of the 2007-2008 Mars opposition were
submitted by Marcin Marczyński of Lezno, Poland. The beautiful
precision he used to render these sketches are a tribute to his
keen observational skills and an artist’s talent at portraying in
graphite pencil, precisely what he sees at the eyepiece. Marcin’s
notes below each sketch are wonderfully concise, yet quite
informative.

Here are Marcin’s sketch details:

Location: Leszno, Poland
Telescope: Sky-Watcher 8″ dob.
Eyepieces: S.Plossl 10mm(120x), Antares Orto.6mm(200x)
white paper, 2B pencil

The map is a handmade combination of above sketches.
Regards
Pozdrawiam!

Marcin Marczyński

Mars through the Fog

Mars through the Fog December 19th, 2007
By Frank McCabe

Initially this observing night began iffy at best. A layer of mid-level thin
clouds along with some ice fog made the view of the moon poor in contrast. Both
Mars and the moon took turns appearing and disappearing behind clouds. When I
caught a look at Mars through the fog I realized the transparency although poor,
was improving the seeing of the Martian low contrast features in a positive way. I
was able to use a 4mm orthoscopic ocular at 360x on Mars for sketching. I tried
several filters but the fog was providing the only filter I really needed.
The central meridian was 341° and the planet was nearly 100% illuminated. The
angular size of Mars on this night was 15.9” of arc. Mars was shining through the
clouds at magnitude -1.6. No stars below 3rd magnitude were visible. The most
prominent features visible included: the bright North Polar Hood; and the
following dark features: Syrtis Major about to rotate out of view; Iapygia
Viridis; Mare Serpentis; Sinus Sabaeus; and Sinus Meridiani. This was my first
Mars sketch in two years.

Sketching: White sketching paper 9”x 9”; 4H, B, HB, and 2H Graphite pencils; I
used my fingers for blending.
Date 12/19/2007 – 4:30-5:00 UT
Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 4mm eyepiece 360x
Temperature: -3°C (27°F)
mostly cloudy, fog, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi II

Jovial Giant

Jupiter-July 11th, 2007
By Richard Handy

The fog along the San Diego coast finally relented enough for a observation and sketch of Jupiter last evening. The Atmosphere was steady enough at Antoniadi II by the time I started around 6:00 UT. I was so happy to get a chance to sketch at the eyepiece after such a long spell of foggy evenings. Jupiter’s elevation above my southern horizon made use of my binoviewers with a 45 degree erector diagonal so comfy! The creamy off-white colors separating the major bands caught my attention first, as they should I guess, since they seem to dominate in total area the visible face of Jupiter. Guess that’s why Jupiter appears like a bright yellow star to our naked eyes. The rusty hue of the NEB was fun to try to capture. I noted burnt sienna barges on some areas along it’s southern fringes. At places the bands appeared broken. The grayish caps at times looked to have little filigrees running along their margins, but the seeing just couldn’t hold long enough to render them.
Sketch details:

Object: Jupiter
Time: 5:57 UT until 6:35 UT Date: 7-12-07
Seeing: Antoniadi II Weather: clear
Telescope: Meade 12 SCT, f/10
Binoviewer: W.O. Bino-P with 1.6X nosepiece
W.O. 45 degree Erector Diagonal
Eyepieces 18 mm W.O. Plossl
Magnificaton: 271X
Medium: Colored Conte’ pencils and colored chalks on 9″ x 12″ Strathmore Artagain black paper
Sketch size: 9″ x12″ Jupiter’s disk is about 5″ in diameter

My First Mars!

Mars, 11-14-07
By Wade V. Corbei

Well I’ll be dipped….I finally had clear enough seeing conditions AND pumped up the power and actually was able to see some detail on the red planet!!! I was tickled to death!

I don’t have any filters at the moment, so through the EP the color seemed a yellowish-creamy-orange. I tried to replicated the color as close as I could. It may not be exact, but I wanted to be careful as not too add a false red/orange color that differed from what I actually observed in the EP.

The black markings (plains?) were quite distinct although a little muted.

My first Mars of any sort.

Celestial Scarab

After a couple days off from observing the comet, I was treated to more stunning views. The Moon was out of the sky, and Holmes was really showing its stuff. To the naked eye, it is a soft puff in Perseus. Through 15 x 70 binoculars, it is simply awesome, floating brightly amid a rich star field. Color is now hard to describe, but I think it looks like the most subtle aqua color. Through the telescope, it is wonderfully bright, and loaded with soft detail. The subtle outer halo makes the comet appear even brighter than it is, as though the radiance of the coma is lighting up its surroundings. The outer halo appears brighter to me along the southwest side. The coma sports a well-defined northeast side with a diffuse southwest edge. Its edges have a hairy appearance that looks like it is being blown gently to the southwest. Within the coma, the central condensation now looks detached from the pseudonucleus. Some very subtle radial features began to coalesce after 45 minutes of observing at 120X and 240X. I don’t know if these are real structures, or just the cometary version of Martian canals. A brighter jet seemed to connect the now faint pseudonucleus with the detached condensation.

My measurements with the astrometric eyepiece are as follows:

Central Condensation: 92 arc seconds / 1.5 arc minutes
Coma: 653 arc seconds / 10.9 arc minutes
Outer Halo: 1550 arc seconds / 25.8 arc minutes

Subject 17P / Holmes
Classification Comet
Position* 6:15 UT – Perseus: [RA: 03:45:52.4 / Dec: +50:32:29]
Size Central condensation: 92 arc seconds / 1.5 arc minutes
Coma: 653 arc seconds / 10.9 arc minutes
Outer halo: 1550 arc seconds / 25.8 arc minutes
Brightness* ~ 2.6 vMag
Date/Time October 31, 2007, 10:00 – 11:30 PM
(November, 2007, 05:00 – 06:30 UT)
Observing Loc. Flagstaff, AZ – Home
Instrument Orion XT8 (203 mm dia./1200 mm F/L)
Eyepieces/Mag. 25 mm Sirius Plössl (48X)
10 mm Sirius Plössl +/- 2X Barlow (120X/240X)
12 mm Meade Astrometric +/- 2X Barlow (~100X/200X)
Conditions Clear, calm
Seeing 3/10 Pickering
Transparency ~ Mag 5.8 NELM
*Sources Aerith.net; Starry Night Pro Plus 5
*Based on published data.

A Speedy Reputation

Comet 8P/Tuttle
By Michael Rosolina

Comet 8P/Tuttle is a periodic comet that comes by our little corner of the solar
system every 13.6 years. It was first discovered by Pierre Mechain 1790 but then
lost, not to be found again until Horace Tuttle spotted it in 1858.

This apparition is a particularly favorable one with Tuttle passing close to the
Earth–closest approach was 23.5 million miles/37.8 million km on January 1st. By
the end of December, Tuttle had brightened to about magnitude 6, putting it at the
threshold of vision for sharp-eyed observers with dark skies.

Because of its nearness to Earth, Tuttle lives up to the speedy reputation that the
word comet invokes. At the time of this sketch, it was covering about 4 degrees of
arc every day as it moved rapidly south through the constellation Pisces into Cetus.
I have included Tuttle’s position at the start of my observation to give some
sense of the distance it traveled in less than an hour.

The sketch was done at the eyepiece on Strathmore 400 series medium weight recycled
sketch paper. I used an HB pencil and a loaded stump and blended with my fingers.
After scanning I inverted the sketch digitally.

The Many Faces of Mars

Mars opposition 2007-2008
By Kris Smet

I started observing Mars early in July to make the most of the opposition in
December when the planet’s disk reached almost 16“. However the first few sketches
may not look like much, I believe making the sketches helped me gain more experience
over the months. Putting the colour of mars on paper was much harder than I thought
it would be, I’ve tried a few different colours but kept changing them because I
wasn’t completely happy with it. The last sketch in my opinion looks most as how
mars appears to my eye in the scope. (All sketches were done with my 8” f/5
reflector on equatorial mount btw, I didn’t took the tube from the dobson base until
October though.)

All sketches are made outside sitting at the scope, with plain A4 printer-paper on a
clipboard on my lap. After the scope is brought back inside I work the sketch out
with colours and scan them in on my computer. The only ‘processing’ I (sometimes) do
is adjusting the brightness and sharpness levels a bit to look a bit more
eyepiece-like.

If you look very closely you can see the small disappearing south polar cap on the
first 5 sketches, after that I couldn’t detect it anymore. During September and the first part of October the north polar hood appeared bluish to me, but it seemed to disappeared and on the 14 October sketch the hood doesn’t show any blue.

While Mars was showing me it’s so called ‘boring side’ during September and October
(accept 5/10 & 31/10) I had the impression that the area south of mare Sirenum,
Cimmerium and Mare Tyrrherium was brighter and more yellow than the desert plains
laying south of them.

In December I had some very good views of the Syrtis Major region in which I could
see some detail. I had to wait until early 2008 to get my first view of the Solis
Lacus region, because whenever this side was facing earth I was clouded out :p

I hope to get more viewing time during January, February and perhaps March to make
another ‘collage’ of Mars sketches.

Expansive Visitation

Comet 17/P Holmes sketch 2
By Leonor Ana Hernandez

Hello friends!

This is my vision of this wonderfull comet, I have spent several nights
watching it an thinking: ” Oh! how beautifu!”
I take my graphite pencil and draw it in white paper two times with
different optics.

Comet 17/P Holmes sketch 2
By Leonor Ana Hernandez

The big one was with a TMB Refractor 20cm and 2010 F. and the smaller one
with a binocular 12 x 80. The night was esplendid, the place was located in
La Hita Observatory in Toledo (http://www.lahita.arrakis.es/). With
binocular I could see an halo around the comet, very very pale but visible.
With the telescope was possible to see stars through the comet.

I hope you enjoy them.

Leonor

Shadow of the Goddess

The transit of Venus June 4th, 2007
By Michael Rosolina

While listening to the McDonald Observatory’s StarDate, I was surprised to hear that
this week marks the 125th anniversary of the 1882 transit of Venus. In my mind I
was transported back to June, 2004 eagerly anticipating the first Venus transit
since 1882. No one living at that time had ever seen such an event.

The transit would be nearing its end when the Sun rose at my location so I set up my
small, portable Astroscan telescope equipped with a homemade white light filter on
the mountaintop behind my home. I wanted my wife to see this rare event too, so I
lured her out by saying I needed her to watch my back for bears (not entirely
untrue–it was mating season and the black bears were very active).

As the Sun rose, we were completely enveloped in a cloud but soon the mist thinned
and we could see the small black dot against the solar disk with the unaided eye.
As conditions improved, we employed filters on the scope and on a pair of 10×50
binoculars to track the progress of Venus towards the Sun’s limb.

During egress, I was fortunate to detect the aureole created by the planet’s
atmosphere. This halo was first seen during the 1761 transit by Russian scientist
Mikhail Lomonosov, who rightly concluded that Venus had an atmosphere. The egress
created some interesting contrast effects which I have tried to render as I saw
them.

I later discovered that there was indeed a small sunspot group near the Sun’s
central meridian, but I could not see it because of the poor transparency.

The sketch was done in the field with 2B and HB graphite pencils on Strathmore
paper. I used a 4 inch template for the Sun and a penny to make the template for
the inset.

Seeing the transit was a peak experience for me (my wife was glued to the binoculars
through the whole thing, too). It was also very gratifying to see how the event
brought the global amateur astronomy community together as we shared sketches and
images via the Internet.

The next Transit of Venus will be June 6th, 2012. Clear skies to all in 2012–there
won’t be another transit for over a hundred years.