Category: Galaxy

Alien Sky

NGC 55
NGC 55

Object Name: NGC 55
Object Type: Galaxy
Location: Cherry Springs Dark Sky Park, Pennsylvania
Date: December 26, 2011
Media: Digitally simulated chalk over an inverted scan of the original in ball-pen.
NGC 55 and IC 1537 culminate over a distant tree line at latitude 42 North. 12” SCT with a diagonal, i.e. north is up and west is left. 125x. Visible asymmetry of the bright core in NGC 55. The fainter IC 1537 is in
actuality a star cloud in NGC 55. Due to low altitude it appears completely detached.

Antennae Galaxies

NGC 4038, 4039
NGC 4038, 4039

Object Name: NGC4038 and NGC4039
Object Type: The Antennae Galaxies (Corvus)
Location: Roque de Los Muchachos, La Palma
Date: 30. June 2011, 11:50 PM
Media: Chalk pencil on black paper
Observer: Christian Rausch
Telescope: 12inch/F5 Dobson (Hofheim Instruments)

Conditions:
– SQML = 21,65 mag/arcsec*2, seeing ok, Temp. +12C
– 165x (Nagler 9mm)

The Roque de los Muchachos is one of the best places to observe the night sky and main base of the European Northern Observatory.

It was impressive experience to spend the night on the top of the 2450m high Volcano and in between observatories like Galileo Galilel, William Herschel, Isaac Newton or the GTC.

Best Regards
Christian

http://www.licht-stimmungen.de/

NGC 1187 Galaxy in Eridanus

NGC 1187
NGC 1187

NGC 1187 Spiral Galaxy in Eridanus
Spiral Galaxy
Location: Rush Valley, Utah
December 26th, 2011
Charcoal on Black Paper

The night after Christmas was clear so me and my observing buddy and friend Mat went out to the West Desert here in Utah for a night of observing. I am working on the Eridanus and Fornax Galaxy Clusters right now and this one was a good place to start. I used my 27mm Panoptic as my finder and the galaxy popped right out with it. It was large, spacious and somewhat faint. I then moved to a 10mm Pentax XW and found more detail. The nucleus is stellar with a bright core region around it, surrounded by diffusion. Using averted vision popped the core. Fun object to find, observe and sketch. I used my Orion XX14i on this object, which is a 14 inch truss dob. The conditions were clear, cold, about 15 degrees and the seeing is rated at an Antoniadi II.

Same Sombrero, Darker Skies

Messier 104
Messier 104

Object Name: M 104 (The Sombrero Galaxy)
Object Type: Galaxy
Location: Itajobi, SP, Brazil
21º19’S / 49º03’W / +450m
Date: 2011, July 26th
Time: 23H30 (U.T.)
Media: 2B 0.5mm graphite pencil on white paper, scanned and inverted
Telescope: newtonian 180mm f6 dob mount
Eyepieces: 32mm, 10mm and 6mm (all Super Plössl)
Seeing: Antoniadi I (excellent)
Observer: Rodrigo Pasiani Costa
Overall weather conditions: no clouds, no wind, about 20ºC and low humidity
Site conditions: farm about 3 miles from a small town, dark, low light pollution, naked eye limit magnitude 5.5

When I sent you my first Sombrero sketch, in December 2010, I promised to sketch it from a darker place to see the difference, so that’s it. If you search for the sketch called Happy Ending (M104 The Sombrero Galaxy) you’ll be able to see the huge difference between downtown and a dark place. Past July was a great month for me, I was allowed to observe many objects, including this amazing M 104. It was the first time I’ve seen it so bright and so detailed. Sombrero was 34º above the horizon, right toward the West. With direct vision only the nucleous was visible, however under averted vision the galaxy showed all its spell, as shown in the sketch. I hope you enjoy it, it has already become one of my favorite sketches.

Best regards, and clear sky to everyone!

From Brazil,

Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

Leaving the Local Group

Voyager, Milky Way and M31
Voyager, Milky Way and M31

Dear ASOD,

Hereby I would like you to send a sketch I made of the Voyager Probe, which is currently in Interstellar space. The sketch isn’t realistic, but it is supposed to depict a véry far future where the probe is leaving our Local group.

Best Regards,

Marijn van de Ruit
The Netherlands
Object Name (Voyager Probe/Milkyway/M31)
Object Type (Galaxy)
Location (Home Sofa )
Date (30-10-2011)
Media (Simple pencile, tortillon)

Twisted Local galaxy

IC 342
IC 342

Details:
– Object: IC342 (Caldwell 5) in Camelopardalis
– Object Type: Galaxy – member of Local Group
– Location: Grandpré (France) – NELM 6.1
– Date: 24th September 2011
– Telescope: Schmitt-Cassegrain C11 on CGEM mount
– Eyepiece: Televue Nagler 13mm Type 6 –> 215x, 23 arcm
– Media: Graphite pencil on white paper –> digitally scan & inverted

A group of a dozen Dutch and Belgian experienced observers had organised a starparty end of September, an hour over the French border to seek dark skies for “genuine” deepsky work. We had a splendid weekend with three clear skies, many exceptional observations and beautiful memories that were taken back home.

The Local Member galaxy IC 342 is quite a challenge – even for experienced observers, since it has a very low surface brightness of 14.6 over a total surface of 20 arcminutes. This observation was made under those good dark conditions and took more than an hour to screen the entire field of view for faint details. Direct observation only visualised the bright core of the galaxy with a hue of nebulosity over the entire field of view. A quite noticeable chain of 6 bright stars lies southwest of the core. Averted observation finally resolved the faint spiral arms of this galaxy and several bright HII regions became visible.

I hope you enjoy the sketch!

Kind regards,
Tom Corstjens
Belgium