Astronomy Sketch of the Day – Page 286 – Drawings and sketches of an astronomical nature

Of cloisters, comets and clusters

Back in the late spring of 2004 I had the opportunity to attend an astronomy
evening at the old Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) at Herstmonceux in
Sussex, England. The weather was dreadful, stormy and rainy, when the
evening began, but by the time the lecture had finished the skies were
clearing rapidly and we were able to catch sight of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT),
a fleeting visitor gracing the region of the ‘Beehive’ cluster (M44) at this
time. The comet was just visible as a naked eye object, but binoculars gave
the best view. This is a reworked pastel and acrylic sketch from my
original, very hastily scribbled graphite binocular sketch. One of the
distinctive copper observatory domes provides foreground interest.

Sketch details:

10 x 50 Zeiss binoculars

16th May 2004, 23.05 UT

RGO, Herstmonceux, Sussex, England

Coloured and white chalk pastel (plus white acrylic for the cometary nucleus
and star images) on black Canford card

Sketch size 8″ x 10″

Sally Russell

Berkshire, England

Lady Luna meets the Lord of the Rings

Saturn Occultation May 22nd 2007

I was not expecting to catch a glimpse of Saturn in a daylight sky, no way was I ready for that amazing vision. In my first look there was the white ringed planet right in front of me, in a blue blue sky heading into the invisible limb of the moon.

I just had to try to capture it, in some way, so I drew it quickly on black paper and then watched and waited until she began to vanish into nothing!!

I set up my easel and I began to sketch the moon through wispy cloud while I waited for Saturn to emerge from behind the lunar sphere. As she reappeared one hour or so later there was a wonderful change in her color against the darker sky. She was so tangerine, she was so beautiful. Saturn and her invisible icy orbs appeared to be flying along as our moon moved and glided out of her majestic way.

Deirdre Kelleghan

Bray, Co Wicklow Ireland

200mm Reflector/10mm eyepiece – 120X 19:01UT

200mm Reflector/ Binoviewer 20mm eyepieces/2X Barlow – 120X 20:09 UT

300gm paper/Soft Pastels/Quiling Needle

19th Century Contemporaries

“Imagination is as vital to any advance in science as learning and precision are
essential for starting points.”
-Percival Lowell


Percival Lowell (1855-1916) was fairly new to astronomy in 1894. After leaving the
family business in Boston and traveling and working in Asia, he spent the last 23
years of his life in astronomy. The observatory on “Mars Hill” in Flagstaff,
Arizona was ready in 1894 for the great Mars opposition that year thanks to the
assistance of William Pickering and Andrew Douglass. Quickly erected mountings and
housings for two loaner refractors (12 inch and 18 inch) were in place for this
event in 1894. The sketches by Lowell above are centered on the Hesperia region in
all three drawings and are separate by about 3 month intervals in time. The first
drawing shows the large south polar cap and was made June 7, 1894 note the gibbous
phase here 5 months before opposition.

“It is quite possible we may have formed entirely erroneous ideas of what we
actually see. The greenish gray patches may not be seas at all, or the ruddy
continents, solid land. Neither may the obscuring patches be clouds of vapor. “
-Edward E. Barnard

At the same time nearly 1000 miles away at Mount Hamilton’s (Lick Observatory)
eagle eyed Edward Emerson Barnard (1857-1923) was observing and sketching Mars
during his last year at Lick Observatory before taking a position at the
University of Chicago and Yerkes Observatory (Williams Bay, Wisconsin). Most of
his observing time was spent using the 36 inch Clark refractor but other scopes on
the mountain were used when telescope time on the large refractor was not
available. Barnard never saw the “canals” described and drawn by Schiaparelli and
Lowell. This sequence of drawings by Barnard shows the shrinkage of the south
polar cap from May to December 1894.

The Drawings are from: David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897, American Book Company

Frank McCabe

On the shores of a Stormy Ocean

Hevelius & neighbours

Sketched on the 29th May 2007 from my home observatory using a Antares 105mm F15
Achromatic refractor. Working at 163x through a Denk binoviewer.

Sketch made on a black spiral bound Daler-Rowney 6″x6″ sketch pad using a
combination of Conte sticks, watercolour and pastel pencils. Image scanned in
Greyscale but unprocessed.

Dale Holt

Four days in the life of a sunspot

Here is a small sequence of observations of sunspot 0953 made during 4 days. 0953
turned out to be one of the bigger sunspots of recent time.

Time : see sketches
Scope : ETX 105/1470
Vixen LV Zoom eyepiece at 8mm
Power : 183
Filter : Baader AstroSolar filter.
Seeing : 2/5

Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with a digital tablet and PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.

Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.

Dust storms on a ruddy desert world

With Mars rising in the early morning hours and slowly increasing in apparent
diameter, Mars observers are already gearing up for this apparition, even though
opposition and closest approach are still six months away.

Along with the opportunity to see the bright Martian South Polar Cap, the North
Polar Hood (the clouds surrounding and hiding the North Polar Cap), famous albedo
features like Syrtis Major, atmospheric clouds, and the giant shield volcano Olympus
Mons (the mightiest volcano in the solar system), observers always have the
potential to see a dust storm develop on Mars.

Although dust storms on Mars can become giant planet-encircling storms that obscure
the surface and cut short the observing season (as happened in 2001), they can also
remain regional, expanding rapidly to cover an area the size of the continental US
and then subsiding. At least two regional events occurred during the 2005
apparition.

The excellent set of Mars sketches by Jeremy Perez on ASOD (8 May 2007) prompted me
to look through my own logbook where I found these two observations made three days
before Jeremy’s drawings. This storm had first been recorded by imagers on 18
October in the area known as Chryse, site of the first Viking landing. By the time
of my first observation, the dust had spread south and was already obscuring
familiar dark albedo features.

In the second observation, Mars had rotated about 40 degrees of longitude, but the
dust had been travelling rapidly west, apparently flowing through the immense fault
(4500km/2800miles) known as Valles Marineris which is associated with the albedo
feature Coprates. The dust later spread over Solis Lacus (the Eye of Mars) and on
towards the south polar region but never turned into a global storm.

This dust storm was bright in unfiltered light but observers wishing to track dust
closely need to use red filters–dust is bright in red light. Wratten #23A and #21
filters are good for small apertures of 8″ (20cm) or less. Those with larger
instruments can use the W25 filter.

The sketches were done using 2B, HB, and 4H graphite pencils, color pencils, and a
blending stump on Strathmore 70 lb. paper. The circle templates are 2 inches. I
like to include the line drawing diagram next to my sketch to label important
features without making the drawing too busy.

A dust storm developing on Mars is a fascinating natural phenomenon to see. Good
luck with this apparition and Happy Mars Observing!

Michael Rosolina
Friars Hill, WV USA

Mighty Copernicus

My second (and last) crater so far. Not the most easy to draw, but he was asking for
it. Drawing the moon is a lot more difficult than expected. There are so many
features to pay attention to. I had to stop sketching after an hour, because the
shadows were changing the view.

The image is flipped to match a North down view.

Date : June, 05, 2006
Time : 21.10 UT
Seeing : 2

Scope : ETX 105
EP : Vixen zoom with barlow.
Power : x240
Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.

View from a high point

Walled Plain Craters Hipparchus and Albateginius

Close to the visible center of the lunar nearside are the north-south crater pair
Hipparchus and Albateginius. On this evening from my observing site they were on
the sunrise terminator. Hipparchus at 150 km. in diameter is the largest and
oldest of the pair dating from the pre-Nectarian period (4 billion years ago). At
and internal to the northeast rim of Hipparchus lies crater Horrocks (30 km.) with
its bright rim and the deep dark center.

Just beyond the Hipparchus crater rim to the southeast is the young, small (15
km.) crater Pickering also with a well illuminated rim. Near the center of
Hipparchus crater Hipparchus X is visible and between it and Horrocks a small
narrow rille was easily seen which is parallel to Rima Reaumur lying out beyond
the Hipparchus rim to the northwest (not sketched). Between Hipparchus and
Albateginius are the old craters Halley (37 km.) and Hind (31 km.). Most of the
rim of crater Albateginius (139 km.) is brightly illuminated by the sun as are two
high points within the “well of darkness”. The illuminated point closest to the
center is the top of a central peak. The other bright point closer to the rim is
the high point on the margin of crater Klein (44km) sitting in darkness. At the
beginning of the sketch these two points were not visible but appeared about 45
minutes after I started.

I tried to picture in my mind what the view would be like if you could stand on
either of these high points and look out and down. Wouldn’t that be a sight?

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils and a blending stump. Contrast was slightly increased after scanning.
Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 241X
Date: 5-24-2007 2:05-3:20 UT
Temperature: 23° C (74° F)
Partly cloudy with haze, light winds
Seeing: Antoniadi II
Colongitude 356.7 °
Lunation 7.28 days
Illumination 52 %

Frank McCabe

Solar protuberances

This summer I visited a friend in La Palma (Canaries) and could observe the
wonderful sky that there they have with his telescopes. One of them
dedicated to the solar observation is an apochromatic refractor 120 mm.
F/6,5 (Vixen), it has a filter installed H alpha SolarMax 90 (Coronado). The
day I observed he sun was completely clear, the solar limb was full of
protuberances and brilliant lines that following the magnetic fields. I took
immediately graphite pencil and white paper and began to draw everything
what he saw through the filter. I was very surprised because of the rapid
movement of the needles and arches that seems dramatic veils against the
dark sky. I tried to draw the variation of the forms with the passing of the
time but it was difficult. I will never forget that so magic experience.
You can see the place where I spent a week observing in this web site:
www.astropalma.com . When the drawing was finished I changed it to negative
in the computer and turned it a bit red.
Leonor Ana Hernandez

Naked eye bull

Here is a lawn chair observation under the freezing Austrian sky at 800m asl. It is
a simple but pleasant sketch of the Bull’s face. I was surprised to notice 3 pairs
of stars. The sky was not perfect dark, so there should be more stars to be picked
out from the cluster. Anyway, scopeless stargazing can be fun ! No cooldown time
needed. My legs and hands cooled down anyway at -9°Celsius. (a solid fuel hand
warmer is a must have)

Location : Bischofshofen, Austria
Date: Dec. 25, 2006 , 20.30UT
Seeing: 4 on a scale of 5, Transparency : 4
Air Temp.: -9° Celsius
Naked eye observation
Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.