Spider or Demonic Face?

Tarantula Nebula 

Medium: graphite pencil and ink on white paper. 20inch f/5 Dobsonian at
Warrumbungles Mountain Lodge, New South Wales, Australia during the Deep South Texas Star Party (this is actually held in Australia) in March 2007. Some, obviously, see
a spider in this incredible deep sky object – I on the other hand see a Hollywood
demonic face snarling at us! Rather fun really when looked at from the safety of 170
klyrs away! Magnification was 212x and actual field of view 0.4 deg.

Rob Esson
Australia

Giant Colorful World of Gas

Jupiter

This sketch was done on Rite in the Rain paper with colored pencils.  I used the
edge of my eraser shield for the bands and blending was difficult with the waxy feel
of the Prang pencils.

An Orion ED80 was used on an LXD75 mount, all of which were on antivibration pads in the observatory.  The eyepiece was a Zhumell 21-7mm zoom

Erika Rix
Zanesville, Ohio

Formal Wear for Planetary Nebulae

Bow Tie Planetary Nebula 

Bow Tie Planetary in Northern Cepheus
  
  In the northern reaches of the constellation Cepheus one can find a planetary
nebula designated NGC 40 or Caldwell 2. This planetary has a bright easily seen
11.5 magnitude central star. The star is extremely hot and was formerly a
Wolf-Rayet star that is currently progressing to the white dwarf stage of stellar
evolution. The portion of the nebular shell I could see was round in appearance
and looked to be about 25” of arc in diameter. The shell glows at 11.7 magnitude
and is best seen by averted vision when not using a nebula filter. With a narrow
band light pollution filter, the nebular shell looked brighter and 30% larger. I
found the unfiltered view more pleasing to the eye and sketched the view without a
filter. Photographs of this object show it to have a pair of bright margin ring
arcs in the east-west direction. These arcs and the central star give the nebula a
bow tie like appearance. I was not able to see bright ring arcs under my observing
conditions with a  10” telescope. The shell spans a bit more than one light year across and lies 3500 light years away. Cepheus is in a favorable viewing location this time of year for northern latitudes.
  
  
  Sketching:
  
  Date and Time: 9-15-2007, 2:30-2:55 UT
  Scope: 10” f /5.7 Dobsonian. 21mm and 12mm eyepieces 70x and 121x
  8”x 12” white sketching paper, B, 2B graphite pencils, scanned and inverted, star
  magnitude adjustments using Paint
  Averted vision was a very useful aid in drawing the extent of this planetary nebula.
  Seeing: Pickering 7/10
  Transparency: above average 4/5
  Nelm: 4.7
  
  Frank McCabe

Study the Moon

Student sketching 
An image of the moon (48% illuminated) was taken by students J. McLaughlin, C.
Keller, and C. Lacroix at the school observatory on September 18th. P. Presby took
that image, projected it, and created a sketch. In the image of the left, his
silloutte appears near the terminator as he contemplates how to proceed; the nearly
completed sketch appears on the right.

John Stetson

50 Years of Space Exploration in Art

Space in Art 

This image shows just a fraction of the art I received for my Space in
Art Celebration. Young Irish school children celebrated 50 years of space
exploration through art.

Space in Art, an exhibition of the work of over 150 children took
place in Gonzaga College Dublin on October 4th.
This was a combined effort from St Andrews NS Blackrock, St Peters NS
Walkinstown, Griffith Barracks NS Dublin with summer project work from
Donore Avenue and Bridgefoot Street children, Dublin city centre.
Wonderful expressive celebratory art in paint, pencil,
glitter,collage,3D, oatmeal, you name it, it was there in truck
loads.Moons (even Iapetus), Planets, Stars,Shuttles, Rockets,and of
course Aliens all in abundance, all bursting with colour and energy.
This exhibition will travel to Birr to take part in the 2007 Whirlpool
Star Party which is a convergence of all things astronomical in
Ireland and abroad. Space in Art was a symbiotic explosion of children’s
work along with a talk on the future of space exploration by Dr John Mason.
Many thanks to all the teachers, pupils, and other individuals who took part.
This event came from a  partnership between The Irish Astronomical
Society and South Dublin Astronomical Society.
Deirdre Kelleghan

Deirdre Kelleghan
President
Irish Astronomical Society 1937 – 2007
http://www.deirdrekelleghan.com/

Swing Your Partner

M51 

Arguably one of the finest galaxies for visual observation, M51 shows some structure
with averted vision under moderately light polluted skies. The core of the captured
dwarf galaxy hanging on to the edge of a spiral arm is quite apparent and makes M51
a favorite of many observers.
This sketch was rendered on Strathmore Windpower Sketch paper with a .5mm mechanical
pencil. MGI Photosuite III was used for post processing.

Jason Aldridge
North Port, FL

Janssen and Fabricius in the Lunar Southeast

Janssen and Fabricius 

 Janssen at 195 kilometers in diameter is a large ancient (4 billion year old)
walled plain crater in the southeastern highlands and is not far from the lunar
limb. Relentless moonquakes and solar system debris impacts have given this crater
its old look. The floor of Janssen is covered by numerous smaller craters. Without
trying too hard I could see 20 crater including those down to a few kilometers in
diameter. The center of the crater appears to bulge higher than the worn rim. Much
of this could be debris from the large much younger impact crater Fabricius (79
km.).  Fabricius is an Eratosthenian period impact crater. It clearly shows steep
sloping walls and exhibits a central mountain range that is about 11 km. long and
also a long central ridge that is more than twice that length. Geologists tell us
that much of the debris across the floor of Janssen is Nectaris impact ejecta;
fluidized where the floor is smooth and irregular boulder-like where the floor
appears  tortured. But perhaps the most interesting feature here is 140 kilometer long Rimae
Janssen. This rille looking like a graben, where it cuts through the high central
region south of Fabricius. It then narrows suddenly before reaching the rim in the
relatively smooth region of the floor. Pits that are visible via high resolution
images in these narrow regions imply volcanism. There is at least one dome on the
floor of Janssen but I was not successful in spotting it in the current
illumination. Craters Janssen and Fabricius presented fascinating features to
examine during this observation.
  
  Sketching:
  For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 7”x11”, white and
  black Conte’ pastel pencils and a blending stump. Brightness was slightly decreased after
  scanning.
  
  Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
  Date: 9-29-2007 6:15-7:15 UT
  Temperature: 16°C (60°F)
  Clear, calm
  Seeing:  Antoniadi III
  Co longitude: 122.1°
  Lunation:  17.73 days
  Illumination:  91.4 %
  
  Frank McCabe

Ship of Stars on an Infinite Sea

NGC 6503 

2007 August 11, 0450 UT
Erika Rix
PCW Memorial Observatory
Zanesville, Ohio USA

NCG 6503

An Orion ED80 was used on an LXD75 mount, all of which were on antivibration pads in
the observatory.  The eyepiece was a Zhumell 21-7mm zoom and a WO dielectric
diagonal.

This sketch was done with Rite in the Rain paper, a number 2 and 0.3mm as well as
0.5mm mechanical pencils

Like a Tart

Lacus Excellentiae

 “She appears like a tart that my cooke made me last weeke, here a vaine of bright
stuffe, and there of darke, and so confusedlie all over. I must confess I can see
none of this without my cylinder”.
  
  These were the honest words of William Lower an amateur astronomer written upon
observing the Moon with his new “perspective cylinder” in 1608.
  In the history of Man Kind this is but a heart beat in time but how the telescope
has evolved from that primitive Galilean spy glass that only the privileged few
could ever hope to own! Now even the most modest instrument delivers views of the
heavens and Moon in particular that our astronomical forefathers could only have
dreamt of!
  
  One thing that hasn’t changed for me and countless others is the “confusedlie” of
the Moon. It is an awe-inspiring yet bewildering sight to all but the most
experienced lunar observer. I myself am very much a Lunar apprentice and each time
I fly over the terminator with my telescope and settle upon “she who takes my
heart” I am learning my way around not only the shadows, bright ridges and crater
rims but through my post sketch research feature names, dimensions and geological
composition.
  
  On the late evening my visual voyage of 250,000 miles at the eyepieces of my
binoviewer was just such an adventure.
  I deliberately selected a relatively demure region, shunning the bright and large
craters in a deliberate attempt to stray from the well trodden path.
  
  It turns out that my target area turned out to be Lacus Exellentiae. I was
initially drawn to a crater with a brightly lit rim just to the left of centre in
my drawing that my subsequent atlas searches found as being nameless apart from
being marked as (b) in a few of the atlases I own . The crater on the right close
to the terminator however turned out to be Clausius with a diameter of 24km and
was situated close the controlled crash site of the European Smart -1 Lunar
orbiter on September 3rd 2006.
  
  A happy hour spent and no longer so Confusedlie!
  
 
    Moon 11 days
   14″ (350mm) Newtonian 193x
    Sketch with Derwent watercolour pencils, Derwent Pastel pencils & conte hard
    pastels. Blending stumps used, sketch on lightweight black card.
    Finished worked scanned but un processed.
  
    Dale Holt
    Chippingdale observatory, Nr Buntingford, Hertfordshire UK