Diamond in Canis Major

NGC 2362
NGC 2362

Diamond in the Canis Maior – NGC2362 open cluster

OBSERVATION:
Date: 2012-02-29
Location: Nagyvarsány/Hungary

Telescope: 140/880 (homemade) Newtonian telescope, Magn.: 88X, Fov.: 30′
Media: digital drawing (Photoshop CS2)

This is a small object, but includes bright stars; approximately 4.1 magnitudes bright . NGC2362 located in the southeastern of Canis Maior, coordinates: -24°59′ 07h19′
Check my blog: www.viktorcsehdraws.blogspot.com

Clear skies!

Viktor 🙂

Thor’s Helmet

NGC 2359
NGC 2359

Object Name:NGC 2359 Thor’s Helmet
Object Type: Bright Nebula
Location: Pozzaglia (Italy)
Date: 25 Feb 2012
Media: Graphite on White paper, digitalized and inverted sketch

Instrument:
Dobson Meade LB 12″ F5
Eyepiece: Hyperion 24mm & Explorer Scientific 14mm
Filters: UHC-S (Baader) , O-III (Astronomik)
Mag.Limit: 5.7
Seeing: 3-4 / 5 Antoniadi
Stellar Field with UHC-S Filter and in Integral Light
Nebula with O-III Filter

Clear Skies To everyone!

Smartphone Conjunction

Moon, Jupiter, Venus Conjunction
Moon, Jupiter, Venus Conjunction

Conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Venus, sketched from a street in Antioch, California, U. S. A.

I’ve been observing these three over the last few days, watching as Jupiter and Venus grow closer in the skies, and always enjoying the waxing moon just after it’s new. Last night, I decided to sketch the view on my phone while I waited for my bus home. There was a slightly lit tree also in my view, so I went ahead and included it for interest. 🙂
The sky was fully dark, with some thin icy wisps of cloud. Seeing was decent, aside from street lights and traffic.

The Pleiades

The Pleiades
The Pleiades

Object: M 45 –, The Pleijades
Object Type: Open Cluster
Berlin, Germany on Jan, 26th, 2012
Media: pencil on white paper, inverted

I have taken this sketch during a very cold night with about -20°C. Due to the coldness the sky over the city of Berlin has been clear and transparent.
As a scope I have used my tiny newly built 60/150mm-Refractor with a 12.5 mm Ploessl-eyepiece. The magnification has been about 12x and so I have been able to get the whole object with one view.

Boat Moon

Boat Moon
Boat Moon

Hi
Boat-Moon 2012-02-13 – 7:30 PM Local Time
Object Name (moon)
Object Type (boat-moon)
Location (Provencal France)
Date (2012-02-13 7:30 PM Local Time)
Media (graphite pencil and watercolour pencil)
Material (Newton telescope 114/500 25x for the moon and naked eyes for the landscape)

Yesterday I climbed with a light telescope on my back to reach the St-Sauveur Mountain, one of my preferred watching places for the moon. I made this unusual view of the « boat-moon ». This is unusual in the south of France, where this position of the moon is quite strange for us. The moon was less brilliant than Venus or Jupiter, not very easy to find out at the beginning of the night.

This sketch was made “naked eyes” for the landscape and with the use of my light telescope (Newton telescope 114/500 25x) for the very new moon (less than 2 days).

The day after in my workshop I coloured the moon using a light blue watercolour pencil and a brush, then I inverted the moon colour with my computer/scan. After this I just position the moon where she was the day before.

A small video explain the journey, just look at : http://youtu.be/2MqIN-E8jRA

Clear sky for all of you !

Michel
http://astro.aquarellia.com/

Jupiter, Venus & Moon – all at once

Conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon - February 25, 2012
Conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon - February 25, 2012

Hi!
I present to You quick, but interesting sketch. Today’s view of the three bright celestial objects.
Conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon.
Venus and Moon – close to each other.
Jupiter – bright object on the left at the top.

This sketch is based on observation with the naked eye. Made with pancil, then inverted and processed with GIMP2.
Greetings!
Aleksander Cieśla (wimmer)

Messier 96

Messier 96
Messier 96

Messier 96
A spiral galaxy in the constellation of Leo
Rush Valley, Utah (West Desert)
February 17, 2012
Pastel on Black Paper, contrast refined in GIMP.

I had some frustrations as my main dark site was muddy and though I could get to it with my 4WD, my observing companions could not. So I called them since I was the first out to the site and we opted for a secondary site and I got there at dusk to set up, after my friends had already set up. After completing setup and collimation, I went to work on open clusters in Puppis and after doing these for a couple of hours, I was tired so I took a break. I then went to work in Hydra on some objects there and decided as I looked up and noticed that it was late in the evening, and both Mars and Leo were up high in the sky so I decided to work on a project that I really want to sink my teeth into. This project is to take some of the Messier and other brighter objects and sketch them from a really excellent dark site and then sketch them again at home in the backyard under light pollution. The goal is to hopefully have some newer people and perhaps some others compare and contrast the sketches to see the difference in detail objects have at a dark site versus when they are observed in a light pollution zone.

So this night I picked several of the galaxies in Leo and in this case, I was pleased with how the sketch of Messier 96 came out, which I present here. I’m still working on the Mellish method though I much prefer it overall then any other method I’ve tried. Now I need to sketch M96 from my backyard if the weather will permit! Skies this night were an Antoniadi II when the sketch was made and the LM was about 6.6 to 6.7 I would estimate (I left my thermometer and my SQM at home along with several other items. It was one of those nights initially). The scope was my Orion XX14i with a 10mm and 7mm Pentax.