Planetary – Page 55 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

The “Seeing Beater” versus the Jovial Giant

For observers in the northern hemisphere this opposition of Jupiter is not
a good one. This complex and fascinating gaseous world won’t manage
to rise above above the troubled horizon so views are going to be compromised during most if not all observations we attempt.

Having said this, Jupiter offers much to the observer seeking detail, OK it’s not
as sharp or as plentiful as we are used to during higher oppositions but it is
still worth recording with our sketch pads.

Increasingly I have been using my long focal length F15 Antares 105mm Achromatic
refractor for sketching observations, leaving the larger Newtonian for those rarer
steady nights. The long refractor is proving to be a bit of a “Seeing Beater”.

On the evening of June 1st/2nd 2007 I made such and observation and sketch and
hope you will agree it was worth the effort with some nice detail in the belts
evident and a couple of fine ovals too.

Start 00.00 end 00.15…. 2/6/07
Antares 105mm F15 refractor working at 163x with a Denk binoviewer, enhanced star
diagonal. Sketch made onto white paper with pre-drawn circles and black surround
using Derwent watercolour and pastel pencils. Image scanned but not enhanced.

Dale Holt

Gibbous Goddess

If you live in the temperate latitudes of the northern hemisphere, you’ve probably
noticed brilliant Venus high in the west at twilight–indeed, it’s hard to miss.
Apart from the phase, little detail is normally visible in the cloudtops of Venus,
due to the glare and low altitude of our “sister planet”.

This year presents the observer with a very favorable apparition because Venus
reaches greatest eastern elongation near the spring equinox. If an observer uses
filters and gets out during early twilight (or even before sunset) while the planet
is still above the atmospheric murk on the horizon, subtle detail can be seen on
Venus.

Even though it is our closest neighbor (next to the Luna) and has been visited by
spacecraft, there is still much that is unknown about Venus. Iti s a worthy target
for any observer, especially during a favorable apparition.

This sketch was made using a 2B and HB graphite pencil, black ink, and a loaded
stump. The sketch was done from an eyepiece diagram based on an intensity scale
where 0.0 = darkest and 10.0 = brightest.

Michael Rosolina
Friars Hill, WV USA

Of cloisters, comets and clusters

Back in the late spring of 2004 I had the opportunity to attend an astronomy
evening at the old Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) at Herstmonceux in
Sussex, England. The weather was dreadful, stormy and rainy, when the
evening began, but by the time the lecture had finished the skies were
clearing rapidly and we were able to catch sight of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT),
a fleeting visitor gracing the region of the ‘Beehive’ cluster (M44) at this
time. The comet was just visible as a naked eye object, but binoculars gave
the best view. This is a reworked pastel and acrylic sketch from my
original, very hastily scribbled graphite binocular sketch. One of the
distinctive copper observatory domes provides foreground interest.

Sketch details:

10 x 50 Zeiss binoculars

16th May 2004, 23.05 UT

RGO, Herstmonceux, Sussex, England

Coloured and white chalk pastel (plus white acrylic for the cometary nucleus
and star images) on black Canford card

Sketch size 8″ x 10″

Sally Russell

Berkshire, England

Lady Luna meets the Lord of the Rings

Saturn Occultation May 22nd 2007

I was not expecting to catch a glimpse of Saturn in a daylight sky, no way was I ready for that amazing vision. In my first look there was the white ringed planet right in front of me, in a blue blue sky heading into the invisible limb of the moon.

I just had to try to capture it, in some way, so I drew it quickly on black paper and then watched and waited until she began to vanish into nothing!!

I set up my easel and I began to sketch the moon through wispy cloud while I waited for Saturn to emerge from behind the lunar sphere. As she reappeared one hour or so later there was a wonderful change in her color against the darker sky. She was so tangerine, she was so beautiful. Saturn and her invisible icy orbs appeared to be flying along as our moon moved and glided out of her majestic way.

Deirdre Kelleghan

Bray, Co Wicklow Ireland

200mm Reflector/10mm eyepiece – 120X 19:01UT

200mm Reflector/ Binoviewer 20mm eyepieces/2X Barlow – 120X 20:09 UT

300gm paper/Soft Pastels/Quiling Needle

Dust storms on a ruddy desert world

With Mars rising in the early morning hours and slowly increasing in apparent
diameter, Mars observers are already gearing up for this apparition, even though
opposition and closest approach are still six months away.

Along with the opportunity to see the bright Martian South Polar Cap, the North
Polar Hood (the clouds surrounding and hiding the North Polar Cap), famous albedo
features like Syrtis Major, atmospheric clouds, and the giant shield volcano Olympus
Mons (the mightiest volcano in the solar system), observers always have the
potential to see a dust storm develop on Mars.

Although dust storms on Mars can become giant planet-encircling storms that obscure
the surface and cut short the observing season (as happened in 2001), they can also
remain regional, expanding rapidly to cover an area the size of the continental US
and then subsiding. At least two regional events occurred during the 2005
apparition.

The excellent set of Mars sketches by Jeremy Perez on ASOD (8 May 2007) prompted me
to look through my own logbook where I found these two observations made three days
before Jeremy’s drawings. This storm had first been recorded by imagers on 18
October in the area known as Chryse, site of the first Viking landing. By the time
of my first observation, the dust had spread south and was already obscuring
familiar dark albedo features.

In the second observation, Mars had rotated about 40 degrees of longitude, but the
dust had been travelling rapidly west, apparently flowing through the immense fault
(4500km/2800miles) known as Valles Marineris which is associated with the albedo
feature Coprates. The dust later spread over Solis Lacus (the Eye of Mars) and on
towards the south polar region but never turned into a global storm.

This dust storm was bright in unfiltered light but observers wishing to track dust
closely need to use red filters–dust is bright in red light. Wratten #23A and #21
filters are good for small apertures of 8″ (20cm) or less. Those with larger
instruments can use the W25 filter.

The sketches were done using 2B, HB, and 4H graphite pencils, color pencils, and a
blending stump on Strathmore 70 lb. paper. The circle templates are 2 inches. I
like to include the line drawing diagram next to my sketch to label important
features without making the drawing too busy.

A dust storm developing on Mars is a fascinating natural phenomenon to see. Good
luck with this apparition and Happy Mars Observing!

Michael Rosolina
Friars Hill, WV USA

Jovial Giant

These are sketches created by hand and processed with Photoshop CS after being
scanned. I use graphite pencil and colored pencils on white paper.

Naturally some of these are based to looking at astrophotography, for more details.
Here are two sketches. The one is by hand and the other after being scanned and
processed with Photoshop.

With this method, I’ve created sketches of the Sun Prominences, and other objects of
the Deep Sky…

Basic equipment used: My Telescopes, ETX-125 5″/ LX 200R 8″/ and my
PST/Coronado/SolarMax 40/TMax Filter- Double Stacked.(For the Sun Sketches)

Scanner, EPSON PERFECTION 3490 PHOTO. ToUcam PRO
II-DSI-c..and my SBIG (recently) ST-2000XM.!!

Peter Desypris
Athens-Greece

Saturn in the Late 19th Century

These two sketches of Saturn appear in David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897,
American Book Company. The first is drawn by British astronomer Henry Pratt made
on the evening of February 11, 1884 using an 8.15 inch clock driven Newtonian
telescope working at 450 power. It shows the rings of Saturn tilted most favorably
toward the earth. It appears on page 366 of Todd’s book. A brief article written
by Henry Pratt can be found in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society, Volume 44, June 1884, p. 407 the article is titled: The Physical Features
of Saturn, 1884.

The second Saturn sketch in David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897,
American Book Company which appears on page 18 was made by the well
known American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard at Lick Observatory
in 1894 (10 years after Pratt’s sketch). E.E. Barnard just 3 years before
rendering this sketch, had discovered Jupiter’s 5th moon Amalthea only
11 days after he was given permission to use the Alvan Clark 36 inch
Refractor telescope on Mount Hamilton. Note the change in appearance
of Saturn’s rings in the 10 years between sketches.

The full-length biography E. E. Barnard by William Sheehan, published in 1995, is
a truly remarkable story of triumph in the face adversity. The book is titled: The
Immortal Fire Within – The Life and Work of Edward Emerson Barnard.

Submitted by
Frank McCabe

Veiling the Red Planet

2005 Martian Dust Storm

In late October during the 2005 Martian apparition, a dust storm
began to roar across the planet’s southern hemisphere. Over the
course of two nights, I was able to make four sketches of the storm
as it developed and rotated into view.

In the sketches, the dust storm can be seen wrapping out of the Solis
Lacus region. On the first evening, I was not able to detect any
color in the storm, but on the second evening, I thought I could
discern a very subtle, yellowish tint. I supplemented the
observations with 21A Orange and 80A Blue filters while using a 6″ f/
8 Newtonian at 240X magnification.

The sketches were made with 2H and HB pencils on 28# bond within 2.5″
diameter circles. For each sketch, I began by completely shading one
circle very lightly with a 2H pencil and then blending with a
blending stump. Then, using both unfiltered and 21A filtered views, I
shaded darker albedo regions with the HB pencil and blended again
with the blending stump. I described bright regions by using both art
gum and kneaded erasers to remove the base shading.

I made a second sketch of each view while using a 80A Blue filter.
This supplementary sketch consisted of a simple line drawing denoting
the brighter areas I saw.

After scanning the sketches and adjusting for contrast, I applied a
black background with a slightly blurred edge to approximate the soft
view through the eyepiece. By using additional layers in Adobe
Photoshop, I added color over the pencil drawing as described in my
notes. Where the 80A line drawing indicated bright spots, I added
some blue to the boundaries of those areas to show that they were
strong in blue light.

Jeremy Perez
http://beltofvenus.perezmedia.net

Tale of the Swan

SWAN M4 Comet

24th October 2006. around 18:30 UT
Novo Cice, Croatia
This sketch was created on plain A4 paper using graphite pencils and
fingers (for blurring). Later it was scanned and inverted in Photoshop
after some minor contrast and brightness adjustments.
I used 8″ F6 Dobson, and GSO WideAngle 15mm eyepiece. Magnification was
80x and field of view around 0.8°. Limiting magnitude was 5.30 and
transparency was good. Comet was very bright and obvious in finder and
it was near M13. In eyepiece it was real showpiece. Head of comet was very bright,
teal and with star like nucleus. Very faint tail was visible running from the
head of the comet. Estimated length of tail was around 1°. Probably the
most magnificent comet in the year 2006 that I had opportunity to observe.

Vedran Vrhovac
www.inet.hr/~vevrhova/english/index.htm

Darkness over Swansea

The lunar eclipse of March 2007 fell over midnight of the 3rd and 4th,
the Moon being in Leo, and in the mouth of the Lion was the planet Saturn. The
sketch is based around 00.30 hours UT, sketched at the top of 600 foot high Kilvey
Hill. The path leading to the summit has a cluster of communication masts on one
side and a Bronze Age burial chamber, now only just visible above the surface, on
the other side. Standing there between the two, looking at the eclipse with the
City of Swansea spread out below, all was very quiet and for once it was a very
clear sky. It felt like a scene out of the fifties TV sci-fi series ‘Quatermass’.

J.E. Thomas

Category: Moon – Total Eclipse
Title: ‘Darkness Over Swansea’
Media: Conte Pastel Pencil on Black Camford Paper
Size: 142 kb