Mercury – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Venus and Mercury After Sunset, release 2

Venus, Mercury and Meteor - 10 January 2015 — Venus, Mercury and Meteor – 10 January 2015

Venus, Mercury - 10 January 2015 — Venus, Mercury – 10 January 2015

Object Name (Venus and Mercury)
Object Type (Plante conjunction and meteor)
Location (Artignosc-sur-Verdon France)
Date (Jan 10th 2015)
Media (watercolor, white paper, inverted after scan)

January the 10th the two inner planets of our solar system are very close. Following the nice pastel sketch made by Frank Jan 6th (ASOD Feb 2nd) I will take the opportunity to compare its view with this I made 4 days later.
While my watercolor session, a probable Quadrantide meteor produce a brilliant flash.

The two planets are easily seen in the field of my UWA EP.

Clear sky to you all !

Michel Deconinck

http://astro.aquarellia.com

Planetary Alignment – Mercury, Venus, Mars

Mercury, Venus, Mars - 9 January 2015 — Mercury, Venus, Mars – 9 January 2015

Object Name: Mercury, Venus and Mars

Object Type: Planet

Date: 1/9/2015

Location: A Coruña, Galicia. Spain.

Media: drawing on picture, edited and enhanced with Gimp

Nikon binoculars 15×70 IF HP

SeeIng: 2/5. Some clouds

This drawing shows the planetary alignment in these days. As the picture taken with the phone was very bad, I decided to draw a picture that showed the beauty of the image.
The brightness of Venus is seen against the weaker yellow Mercury. The red glow of Mars came a bit latter and sharing view with it, the star Iota Aquarii showed its pale white light.

Venus and Mercury in Same FOV

I observed Venus & Mercury together in the same FOV on January 10, 2015 from 14:30 to 16:00 hr MST here in Tucson, Arizona USA with a Celestron Nexstar 11 f10 GPS stopped down to 4.5″, a 2″ diagonal and a 2″ University Optics 32mm Ultra Wide eyepiece (AFOV 80 deg). The field of view was 0.95 and Venus & Mercury fit into the same FOV comfortably. Venus was a bright, white, full orb and Mercury appeared as a very small disk with a pinkish – white color. It appeared that 3 Mercurys could fit across the disk of Venus. Seeing was very good around 3:15 PM so centered on Mercury and increased the power to 259X using a Meade Ultra Wide 8.8mm AFO 84 deg eyepiece. Mercury showed a nice quarter phase with a nice pale pink disk; moving over to Venus and the full phase, white disk showed very well. The color sketch was done using Paint.net application to record the observation.

Conjunction of Venus and Mercury – 18 January 2015

Living in Eastbourne, I am lucky enough to have the famous cliffs at the end of the South Downs close by; the panoramic views they afford are ideal for watching sunrises and sunsets, which are frequently rendered even more beautiful by dramatic coastal clouds. On Sunday 18th January I was driving back from a visit to the beach further east at Normans Bay, when I noticed a break opening up in the blanket of cloud to the west. Instead of heading home I made the short detour up to Beachy Head, where I was treated to this wonderfully picturesque celestial scene.

Best regards and clear skies, Oli

18/01/15 18:45 UT
Soft pastels on Rembrandt pastel paper with acrylic paint for Venus

Great elongation of Mercury 2014

The Great Elongation of Mercury - May and June 2014 — The Great Elongation of Mercury – May and June 2014

In the spring of 2014 we observed a super elongation of Mercury; high brightness and large apparent diameter.
I followed up the Mercury from 9. May to the fifth day of June. I got a great experience and a wealth of experience.
I managed to identify a lot of formation on the surface of Mercury, despite I used a small telescope. I hope you enjoy this little compilation! 🙂

Information:

Observer: Viktor Cseh
Location: Nagyvarsány/Hungary (Central Europe)

Equipment used: 100/1000 achromatic refractor
Ocular: 4mm Kasai Magellan ortho
Magnification: 250X
Filters: W80A blue, W21 orange and W12 yellow

Drawing instruments: graphite pencils, white observing form.

Clear Skies!

Viktor 🙂

Early Planets

Mercury, Venus, alpha Libra, Saturn and Spica

Please find here my last watercolour

Object Name (Mercury, Venus and Saturn)
Object Type (Planets conjunction)
Location (Rocbaron Provence France)
Date (December 5th 2012 5:55 UT)
Media (Watercolour on 300gr paper plus white colour for planets)

It was quite cold this morning 1°C but I would like to see the rising of Mercury from my terrace.
Bottom-up we can see: Mercury near the chimney, Venus near alpha Libra, Saturn and Spica .

Clear sky to you all, and if possible, with warmer atmosphere !

Michel Deconinck
http://www.aquarellia.com

Conjunction of Mercury and Venus

Mercury and Venus Conjunction - June 20, 2013 — Mercury and Venus Conjunction – June 20, 2013

Hello sketchers

Here my last observation of Mercury and Venus

Object Name (Mercury and Venus)
Object Type (Planet conjunction)
Location (Val d’Issole)
Date (June 20th 2013)
Media (Watercolour for the landscape and graphite pencil for the planets)

During this very “non cloudy” evening with a perfect transparency, I observed this planet conjunction from my own terrace. I use a 10×50 binocular to find Mercury as early as possible, then with my 102/1000 refractor I begin to sketch this planet that I see with a pale orange light, until masking by the horizon. Some time after, I sketched Venus, with a more blue light. The EP I used was a 40mm to find the planets and then a 10mm SWA to sketch.

What is uncommon here is the apparent diameter of both planets, they looks very similar in size but with very different colours. In fact, Mercury was close to us, nearly between the sun and the earth, and Venus was far further our star.

Michel – http://astro.aquarellia.com

Michel Deconinck

Mars and Mercury

Here join my last watercolour

Object Name (Mars and Mercury)
Object Type (Planet conjunction)
Location (Sainte-Anastasie-sur-Issole, Provence, France)
Date (08-02-2013)
Media (watercolour)

This February 8th between 17h and 18h (UT) I wanted to watch an unusual planets conjunction and set, Mars and Mercury separated by only 15 ‘. This could be seen through the long and wide belt of Venus. I found a peak of 360° free to obstacles – 500 meter altitude. North we see clearly two winter sports resorts and South the Porquerolles Island and its lighthouse – 2 x 10 sec, so… the “M” morse letter, to celebrate our two planets M.. ?
It was cold with a strong wind, I still observed one hour. Some pictures with my little camera and two quick sketches, a complete landscape and an eyepiece vision, in order to be ready to make a watercolour, the day after.
Mercury was bright, clearly visible with a white light. Mars was 8 times less light but very red. No details with my reflector 100/500, plus an eyepiece K12mm. We can just imagine the disc-shaped appearance of the two planets. Mercury was gibbous almost full and very close the tiny and still red planet.

Clear sky to you all !

Michel Deconinck
http://www.aquarellia.com

Early Planets

Conjunction of Mercury, Venus and the Moon

Please find here my (this morning) watercolour

Object Name (Mercury, Venus and the Moon)
Object Type (conjunction)
Location (Rocbaron Provence France)
Date (December 11th 2012 6:00 UT)
Media (Watercolour on 300gr paper plus white colour for planets)

It was quite cold this morning -1°C plus Mistral (north local wind)… but I would like to see again the rising of Mercury from my terrace.

Bottom-up we can see: Mercury near the chimney and Venus close to the Moon.

The watercolour was done on the spot, taking off the pigment for the planets with a brush when the paper was not yet dry. I add some hot coloration to the dark part of the very old Moon. Then I scanned the picture.

Clear sky to you all !

http://astro.aquarellia.com

Michel Deconinck

Mercury Transit – 1970

Hey Artists!

As the time of the “last” transit of Venus is perhaps ended, I would like to show all an old
but spectacular observation of a transit of Mercury I made in 1970.
My sketch shows not only a solartransit, but the planet also passed over a close bipolar
sunspots!!
It was interesting to observ the absolute black Mercury with the umbra in the spots.
The umbra was easy seen brighter. My info on sketch is in norwegian!
This was a lucky observation, indeed!!
Location : Trondheim, Norway.
I used pen and pencil on this original sketch.

Thanks for nice comments on my sketches!!
Have a clear sky and nice time to all!

Per-Jonny Bremseth.