Astronomy Sketch of the Day – Page 229 – Drawings and sketches of an astronomical nature

Highland Crater Sacrobosco

Lunar Highlands Crater Sacrobosco
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

Crater Sacrobosco is a large (100km.) 4 billion year old Pre-Nectarian crater with a height of 3.5 kilometers from floor to highest rim. The crater shows its age with that badly worn rim over most of its circumference. What makes this southern highland crater so eye catching at the eyepiece are the 3 younger craters on the floor of this ancient giant. Clockwise at 11, 2 and 6 o’clock they are Sacrobosco B, A, and C. A is the largest at 17 km. in diameter and C is the smallest at 13 km. Much of the illuminated floor of Sacrobosco is smooth in appearance except where interrupted by a long meandering line of what look like low irregular hills from the center to the north rim (bottom in the sketch).
Many of the surrounding craters during this phase of the lunation would make great sketching targets as well.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9”x 12”, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and a blending stump. After scanning, Brightness was decreased (-2) using my scanner.

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm and 4mm eyepieces 241x and 362x
Date: 1-3-2009, 0:05 – 1:20 UT
Temperature: – 6°C (22° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III, occasionally II
Colongitude 349.9 °
Lunation 6.5 days
Illumination: 34.9 %
Libration: in Lat. -4° 23’, in Long. -7° 59’

Frank McCabe

The Goddess over Wroclaw

Venus over Wroclaw, Poland
Sketch and Details by Aleksander Cieśla

Venus shining over Wroclaw city south horizon. Always beautiful.

Sketch information:
Object: Venus
Scope: Schmidt-Cassegrain 5” with Antares Speers-Waler 7,4mm
Filter: Baader Moon & SkyGlow, Meade #58 Green
Place: Poland, Wroclaw – near city center
Weather: Good. Seeing 7/10. Light Pollution.
Date: 29 December 2008.
Technique: Pencil and finger blur
Tooling: GIMP 2

Venus at higher power over Wroclaw, Poland
Sketch and Details by Aleksander Cieśla

and second sketch of Venus in the same time

Crescent Moon and Planet Gathering

Crescent Moon and Planet Gathering
Sketch and Details by Carlos E. Hernandez

I was fortunate to have witnessed the grouping of the Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter again on December 29, 2008 (23:15 U.T.) with the addition of Venus. The Waxing Crescent Moon was now above the pair of Mercury and Jupiter. Mercury (-0.75m) was approximately 7.5 degrees above the western horizon, Jupiter (-1.51m) ~10 degrees, the Moon ~15 degrees, and Venus (-4.25m) ~33 degrees. Earthshine was easily visible over the unilluminated portion of the Moon. This grouping was very striking against a pastel blue sky with lavender clouds below over the western horizon.

A digital image produced using Gimp.

Constellation Gemini

The Constellation Gemini
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

At 10:30 pm local time the constellation of Gemini the twins was rising in the east above the roof of my home. The two brightest stars to the left (north) in the sketch are Castor above Pollux. It has been enjoyable to have two clear or at least partly clear nights at the freezing point following a couple of weeks of very poor weather with overcast skies. As I sketched, clouds interrupted me and so I rushed a bit more than I would have wished in order to finish. I did have a telescope at my side but the clouds prevented its use. Although this was a brief encounter with the heavens it was fun.

Sketching:
Naked eye drawing
Date and Time: 12/30/2008 10:30 pm -11:15pm local time
8.5″ x 11″ textured light tan paper, #2HB Dixon Oriole graphite pencil,
white Conte’ crayon, gum eraser.
After scanning I rotated and cropped the drawing to create more interest above the roof line. Using Microsoft Office Picture Manager brightness was decreased -2 and contrast was increased +3.

Frank McCabe

No Friend of Man Made Light Sources

Galaxy NGC 891
Sketch and Details by Jeremy Perez

Observation Notes:

This large, edge-on galaxy is no friend of man-made light sources. It was not difficult to find, but was still rather subtle from my back yard. It appeared as a slender, soft brightening of the sky and shared space with one rather distracting star. This star was located on the west side of the north spine of the galaxy. The glow from the star overpowered the galaxy on the north side enough to make it look lopsided at a glance–like the south spine was bulkier. Perhaps when observing from a darker site, the galaxy’s luminosity would be able to hold its own against the background sky glow and that star would not seem to interfere as much. Another faint star marked the southwest tip of the galaxy’s profile.

I analyzed the field for some time, to see if I could detect the central dust lane, but only got a couple fleeting hints of it. I wasn’t confident enough in those glimpses to record it in the sketch. Once again, a darker sky would probably help in that effort. The galaxy appeared to be about 15 x 2 arc minutes in size and aligned at a PA of about 40 degrees. That doesn’t match well with the published value of 22 degrees–it looks like I marked my west point a bit further clockwise than it actually was.

Object Information:

NGC 891was discovered by Karoline Lucretia Herschel in 1783 and is a member of the NGC 1023 group. It is also cataloged as: UGC 1831, MCG+07-05-046, H V-19, h 218, GC 527, CGCG 538.052, PGC 9031

Subject NGC 891
Classification* Galaxy (Sb)
Position* Andromeda [RA: 02:22:33.5 / Dec: +42:21:03]
Size* 13.5′ x 2.5′ (PA 22°)
Brightness* 10.0 vMag (10.6 bMag)
Date/Time NOV 30, 2008 – 10:30 PM MST (DEC 1, 2008 – 05:30 UT)
Observing Loc. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA – Home
Instrument Orion SkyQuest XT8 (203 mm dia./1200 mm F/L)
Eyepieces/Mag. Pentax XW 10 (120X)
Conditions Clear, cool, breezy
Seeing 5/10 Pickering
Transparency ~ Mag 6.0 NELM
*References NGCIC.org

Magnificent Posidonius

Lunar Crater Posidonius
Sketch and Details by Dale Holt

Lifted straight from my observing notes of 19th Oct 2008

Tonight my eye was caught by Posidonius, it looked absolutely incredible with its walls illuminated magnificently. It is a walled plain located between Mare Serenitatis and Lacus Somnorium 95 Km in diameter. This is a very interesting and busy feature its floor covered in craterlets, rilles and peaks. To the west there is a double wall which is highly illuminated in the sketch. There is a central crater A, with another tiny crater P just below. The large crater to the upper left is Pos J, to the upper right on the edge of the sketch is Pos P. Of all my lunar sketches to date I think I have enjoyed making this one the most, I’m also pleased with the result I feel it has slight ‘H Percy Wilkins’ look about it.

6″ f9 triplet refractor @ 300x

Sketch made with Conte pastels & Derwent pencil pastels worked with blending stumps & erasers on Black Daler Rowney paper

Dale Holt

Chippingdale observatory

NE Hertfordshire

England

Frozen Crab with T600

M1, The Crab Nebula in Taurus
Sketch and Details by Bernard Augier

Messier1

The Crab Nebula

Dobson T600

I was surprised not to found many drawing of the famous Crab Nebula,
espacially with large apperture scope (over 11″).

So I decided to draw my own with a 24″ Dobson F/D 3,3 on equatorial
platform. I’m living in French Alps, in a little village.called Saint
Etienne-de-Tinée.

In fact it takes me two nights on 28 and 29 december 2008. Temperature of –
11°C, Lightly windy, SQM at 21.20 not so good.

It is very usefull to use plenty of various magnification from 100 to 800
and observe without and with OIII filter.

It results (in) plenty of different perceptions and the sketch is really a
combination of all of them.

Without filter the shape of the nebula is smooth and familiar with “gulf” on
the two sides, and a sort of mushroom on the top. With filter, the
perception is surprising with a very “fat” shape on whch you can see the
famous filaments, and the border is ruffled and tormented.

The best wiew was at x200 with OIII.

Bernard Augier

An Ursa Major Pair

M81 and M82 in Ursa Major
Sketch and Details by Rony De Laet

M81 and M82 an Ursa Major Pair

The famous M81 and M82 form a nice duo in a pair of binoculars. First try to locate the star 24 Ursae Majoris. With that star in the center of the fov, M81 should be visible near the western edge of the field. M82 can be glimpsed at about 40′ to the north of M81. M81 is the brighter one of the two. It looks like a small glowing patch of light. Its center appears to be a tad brighter. M82 is rather weak, but the cigar shape is clearly present! I find it amazing that at a distance of 13 million light years, this duo is recognizable in a simple pair of binoculars.

Observing data:
Date : March 31, 2008
Time : around 21.30UT
Binoculars : Bresser 8×56
FOV: 5,9°
Filter : none
Mount : Trico Machine Sky Window
Seeing : 2,5/5
Transp. : 2,5/5
Nelm : 5,0
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.

Target data:
NGC 3031(M81) in Ursa Major
Spiral Galaxy
13 million l.y.
Mag: 6.9
SB: 13
Dim 26′.9 x 14′.1

NGC 3034 (M82) in Ursa Major
Irregular Galaxy
13 million l.y.
Mag: 8.4
SB: 12.8
Dim 11′.2 x 4′.3

Crater Inghirami

Lunar Crater Inghirami
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

This ancient crater is from the Nectarian period and is nearly four billion years old. Crater Inghirami measures 90 km. in diameter and is about 3 km.deep. The ancient floor is cratered, ridged and rubble covered with ejecta launched from the Basin Orientale forming event that followed after the impact making of Inghirami crater.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9”x 7”, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and a blending stump. After scanning, Brightness was decreased (-3) using my scanner.

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece 161x
Date: 12-11-2008, 1:10 – 2:20 UT
Temperature: – 2°C (28° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude 73.1 °
Lunation 13.5 days
Illumination: 97 %
Libration: in Lat. -6° 3’, in Long. -3° 45’

Frank McCabe

Thor’s Helmet

NGC 2359 “Thor’s Helmet”
Sketch and Details by Serge Vieillard, translation by Frank McCabe

Thor’s Helmet NGC 2359 in Canis Major

Using an ultra compact 250 mm.Newtonian telescope to observe Serge wrote (Roughly translated from French):

I was staying in the Sahara just south of the oasis town of Djanet, during the 2nd week of January, 2008. The only drawing made of a deep sky object during this tremendous journey was of NGC 2359, although other numerous, spectacular objects were visited. The vision of this beautiful nebula in the T250 with an OIII filter shows a nice structure centered on a rather complex bubble, with filaments and of well defined tormented outlines. This quick drawing suffers from some imperfections, notably the absence of nebulosity that was visible and the misplacement of one of the wings. This object was so beautiful that I promised myself to revisit it again.