NGC 404 Galaxy in Andromeda
Sketch and Details by Kiminori Ikebe translation by Eiji Kato
2000.11.04 00:12
32cm at 150x
Quite bright and a second-magnitude star in the same field of view does not interfere with observation. Smallish and circular with some elongation. A compact central condensation. The outlying area is diffuse.
Kiminori Ikebe
Hi gentlemen,
I propose to day not a showpiece, but a part of it: the dark lane of NGC 5128, Centaurus A, aka The radio galaxy.
Most of the time, when they sketch this galaxy, amateur astronomers resume the dark lane by a black and narrow patch, with one or two details.
But if you can observe it through a big scope, under good skies, and at high power, you will discover a world in itself.
A river with a long and narrow island in the middle, several regions where the depth is strong, and consequently the color of the water in these parts totally dark, but other places with shallow water and the bottom visible in more or less grey color.
There are also some isolated settlements with small lights, and even a village with a hazy spot of non resolved lights on the north shore. A strange thing with this river is its two rivermouths, one at each end!
Of course, this is a rather poetic description, where stars are the lights of settlements, the opacity the consequence of the depth of the water, and so and.
But, really, it’s worth it: you might believe it if you stay a long time at the eyepiece, as I did with a 20” Obsession, at Tivoli Lodge, Namibia.
Have a good dream…
Bertrand Laville, from Marseille / France
www.deepsky-drawings.com
Object: NGC 2403 (GX, Cam)
Date: 2010. 08. 08/09.
UT.: 20h39m – 21h34m
Equipment: 305/1525 Dobsonian telescope
Mag.: 191x
FOV: 16’
S = 4 / 10 T = 4 / 5
Observer: János Gábor Kernya
Location: Sükösd, Hungary
Hello friends,
A vision of M31 through a 40mm eyepiece. The view was fascinating.
Object Name: M31 Andromeda Galaxy
Location: Benacebada, Granada (Spain)
Date: 2010.07.09
Media: graphite pencil, white paper. Inverted with PS
Telescope: 16″ Dob. The observing conditions: with new moon, the seeing and transparency excellent.
I hope you like it!
Leonor
—
Visita nuestra web de Leonor y Fernando:
www.astronomadas.com
Object Name: The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51, NGC 5194 – 95, Arp 85)
Object Type: Interacting galaxies
Telescope: 28 inch f/4 alt-az Newtonian
Location: Star Party, RTMC
Date: June 2009 to July 2010 (total of seven hours observing/sketching spread out over six nights)
Media: HB graphite pencil on white acid free Canson paper (8 inch x 5 inch sketch book). Inverted sketch created in Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Back in March 2009 I had perhaps my best view ever of the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, but was too lazy to start sketching. It was a great sight – blazingly bright spiral arms full of star clouds, and the companion galaxy was wreathed in a veil of faint, “E” shaped nebulosity. Frankly, the amount of detail was a bit overwhelming to start a sketch.
That lost opportunity got me going however and I began my “big M51” sketch in June 2009 at the Golden State Star Party. I’ve continued adding detail at every opportunity since then.
My intent with this sketch was to see and accurately record as much detail as possible with my 28 inch f/4 alt-az Newtonian, and that I would take as long as needed to give it my best effort. After a total of seven hours observing over six nights, which were spread out over a year, I’ve come up with the attached sketch. There’s more to see so I anticipate adding a few more details over time.
I started off with a blank page in my 8 inch by 5 inch notebook. My notebook is more of a sketch book that I also take notes in so I like to start with a blank page – no eyepiece circles. This gives me the freedom to expand or contract my sketch and take notes as needed for a particular object. Because of M51’s size and amount of detail I used an entire 8” x 5” page for my sketch.
After observing the Whirlpool for about five to ten minutes at low to medium powers (105x to 253x) I began lightly sketching by starting at the brightest and most distinctive areas. I then extended the light pencil marks out until the basic form was captured. This took some back and forth to get the proportions correct, and involved one do-over. A good eraser was as valuable as the right pencil.
Once the full form was adequately sketched in I started paying attention to small scale details, again working from the brightest area outward. At this point I was using higher powers as the seeing allowed. Specifically, I used magnifications from 408x to 816x, but most of the time I was in the 408x to 438x range. To see the most stellar-like points I used 710x to 816x.
I built up the basic outline and filled in most of the major details within the first two hours of my sketch in June 2009. The next five hours of observing and sketching were spread out over four different nights in May and July 2010, and at times I used photos of M51 to help track down subtle and faint details that would have otherwise been missed. The most subtle detail I detected with without specific photographic aid were the dark lanes running on the inside of the main spiral arms. Also, two faint background galaxies (IC 4277 and IC 4278) are shown in the upper right area of the sketch. 4278 was fairly easy to see but 4277, the one on the far right, required a big effort with averted vision to detect. In deep photos this is a small edge on galaxy. SQM readings for my observing sessions ranged from 21.4 to 21.7.
My sketch was made almost entirely at the eyepiece, with only some blending of discrete pencil lines and cleaning up the star points done later.
Best of all this effort has inspired me to start a series of “big” sketches of my favorite objects. Currently in the works is an M33 sketch and I look forward to starting on the Trifid Nebula next spring.
Howard Banich
Object Name: The Galactic Center
Object Type: Center of the Milky Way
Location: , , the
Date: August 2010
Media: pencils and fineliner on white paper, photographed with Sony A200, edited with The Gimp
Telescope: Bynostar SPN 130/900
Observer: Rutger Teule
Information:
Aim your telescope on a clear night to the , and you’ll see a countless amount of stars. Each star tells a different story and many of them have planets that orbits around them. It’s very good possible that there is life on one or more of those planets. When I look at all those stars on a clear night, I always dream about the wonders that are out there. And that dreaming, makes astronomy so special.
Clear Skies!
Rutger|Teule
www.rutgerteule.com
Needless to describe a so well known object, despite the observation has been made with a large scope: 25” dobson Obsession.
The interesting features are, according to me,
– the upper halo which points out easely,
– and the very small twin galaxies at the lower left, seen only in adverted vision, hardly, and not separated. It is not suprising: they are at about 18th magnitude! Both have been imaged by the HST, and can be detailed in several APOD photos.
My picture, as usual, is drawn on a Canson paper, sheet of 200 gr/cm2 and 21 x 29.7 cm, with graphite, stump-drawing, and ink of China.
Then scanned, turned in negative, and finally legend, scale and compass added.
Complete observation report at www.deepsky-drawings.com
Bertrand Laville
Dzień Dobry 🙂
Sketch information:
Obiect name: Hickson 10
-NGC 536 (12,4 M – 3,0×1,1 size)
-NGC 529 (12,1M – 2,4×2,1 size)
-NGC 531 (13,8M – 1,9×0,5 size)
Scope: Sky-Watcher 254/1200
Eyepieces: LVW 8 (150x)
Place: Poland, Zielona Góra (A few kilometers from city)
Seeing: Very Good. 5/5
Date: 24/25.08.2009r
Technique:Pencil,graphics GIMP2
Amateur astronomer: Przemysław Horoszkiewicz (Poland)
The Andromeda Galaxy & Companion Messier 32
August 11th, 2010
Location: Connecticut, USA (in an orange/red zone)
Drawn with black, grey, and white graphite colored pencil on white paper, with a black uni-ball pen for stars. Photographed with a Panasonic DMC-TZ3 and imported to Photoshop for inverting and touchups.
At time of drawing transparency was below average and so I really had to work hard to eke out any semblance of detail in M31. Aperture helped – I used a 203mm Newtonian for this drawing, even so, the one dust lane was only visible with averted vision. You may notice a strange lack of stars in the field, there are two reasons behind this: one is that too many stars become a distraction and two is that I generally only use them as reference points for my sketch.
Paul Schneider
NGC 6822
Barnard’s Dwarf Galaxy
Sagittarius
24/07/09
Ilford NSW Australia
Field 27′
Magnification 218x
56cm f5 dobsonian telescope
Sky Quality Meter Reading 21:46
Black Canford paper
White pastel
White pen
Soft white pencil
Blending stump
NGC 6822 or “Barnard’s Dwarf Galaxy” is not a particularly difficult object from a dark sky site, but it is rather diffuse, and can suffer visually from poor sky conditions.
I always find medium to low magnification the best when observing this galaxy as it contrasts nicely with the numerous field stars.
I noticed there had been one or two entries in previous years on ASOD dealing with NGC 6822, so I thought I might add my own just for another perspective on this
fascinating object.
As you can probably notice just to the right of center in the sketch and about 6′ apart are two of the brighter H-II regions of this object.
A local group member NGC 6822 is quite famous as being the basis for Edwin Hubble’s seminal paper- NGC 6822 A Remote Stellar System (Hubble 1925) wherein he
was able to identify 15 variable stars, the majority of which were Cepheid’s.
He was then able to determine the distance to NGC 6822 with great accuracy (over 700 000 ly).
This virtually concluded the “Great Debate” of 1920 between Shapely and Curtis over the scale of the Universe and the nature of “Spiral Nebulae”.
So if you get a chance to observe NGC 6822 you are looking at a bit of history in more ways than one.
Scott Mellis