I have not sketched Saturn this go around until now because of extremely poor weather so far this year. On Wednesday evening the atmosphere cooperated and I had a scope outside cooling down. I did not have access to any Saturn templates because of a computer crash. So I took out my old mechanical drawing equipment and made an ellipse of the approximate eccentricity of Saturn’s rings and sketched from there. It’s a bit crude but reasonably close to the view. Seeing was good and the atmosphere was transparent. I was able to see Mimas but it was just beyond the way I framed the sketch for posting. Enceladus was about 12th magnitude.
Sketching:
Date: 06/20/2013, 01:45 – 02:45 UT
Sky Conditions: Partly cloudy
Transparency: 3/5
Seeing: Pickering 7/10
For sketching I used 10” x 12” Canson black paper, white, gray, charcoal and black pastel pencils, powdered Conte’ crayons, white Pearl eraser, blending stumps.
Equipment: 18” f/4.95 Dobsonian with a 9mm ortho eyepiece for 250 x.
Neodymium filter and single polarizing filter
Frank McCabe
one comment: wow
Frank that is the best balance of scientific accuracy and artistic impression I have seen for a long time. A wonderful study worthy of framing.
Well done and nice to see that conditions allowed your largest scope to be used 🙂
Dale UK
Frank,
Now, we can see (and feel) the power of the 18″ scope!
😀
Marek
Nice Frank, this is a lovely real sketch, very artistic, maybe because you don’t use any template,…
Frank,
This sketch shows your real talent in this activity!
I really enjoy it! Thank you for sharing it.
Good luck
Roberto, Dale, Marek, Michel and Negar,
Thank you for your kind comments and best to you all in your future sketching.
Frank 🙂
Roberto hit the nail on the head … WOW !!! Nice job Frank.
Mike,
Thanks much.
Frank 🙂