Hi all,
We’ve had some poor conditions in Eastern Australia for most of this year. I still haven’t had a single productive dark sky night yet! Last night it did clear, but for home, and on a Sunday evening! J LOL!
NGC 6397 is a real treasure of the Southern Sky. This globular cluster is just visible to the naked eye from a dark site. It has many mottled concentrations of stars within its confines, even some extending way beyond its core. Some of these, however, may just be incidental line of site features of other open clusters within our Milky Way as 6397 lies quite close to the centre of the Milky Way in the constellation Ara.
6397 also shares a feature with its more famous brother M4 of a “belt” of stars that cuts through its middle. The component stars of this belt in 6397 are much fainter though, making for a ghostly feature. It is a truly beautiful cluster, and a joy to sketch.
One thing I am not a fan of in my sketches is the blaster “Circle of Confine”, that all to dominant circle that describes the field of view. I rarely use it, but I do have to admit that it has a place. Here I’ve gone for a variation/compromise, laying down a very, very faint arc, rather than a full circle. I really want the sketch to be the feature, not a circle.
Object: NGC 6397
Scope: 17.5” dob, push-pull
Gear: 15mm GSO Superview, 133X
Date: June 5, 2011
Location: Sydney, Australia
Media: White soft pastel, white & black charcoal & white ink on A4 size black paper.
Cheers,
Alex M.
Hi Alex,
Always enjoy seeing your sketches regardless of the target types.
Your capture of this globular is spot on based on what I expect from images I have seen. Great work!
Frank 🙂
Alex
Beautiful sketch. I see what you mean about “Circle of Confine” the absence of the circle does seem to cause you to concentrate more on the sketch, similar to the way the black background of the page does. But as a novice skatcher I’ll keep the training wheels on. :^)
John
That’s a masterpice, man! Congratulations, and keep sharing your sketches, with or without the circle.
Thank you for your nice comments.
John, I was lucky enough to meet our late friend Scott Mellish last year. On that occasion, Scott showed me the technique he used on sketching DSO’s. It totally changed my thinking and my technique. So inspired was I that, with Scott’s collaboration, I wrote an article on his technique:
[url=http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-614-0-0-1-0.html]Sketching DSO’s using the Mellish technique[/url].
The key with this method is you start with the faint “nebulosity” FIRST, not the bright stars. This gives you the freedom to develop the nebulosity without any type of restrictions of scale. You get the sketch of the nebulosity right first, then you work on the details.
Note that Scott worked with the “circle of confine”, and did it successfully. That was his practice and experience. At this time, I either don’t use a circle at all, which I prefer, or scribe the circle after the sketch is completed.
Scott was so generous with his time, experience, and knowledge. With the presence he had here on ASOD, I’m hoping that the webmasters of this site don’t mind the link to Scott’s sketching technique.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Alex M.
Let’s try that link again as the url code didn’t come up:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-614-0-0-1-0.html
Alex M.
Tremendous sketch! David Moody is a master of “open field” sketches, too for his galaxy work. It can be tough to do because of the star placements. Which white pen do you use to produce the fine pinpoint stars? I’ve been searching high and low for one that can do that kind of detail.