Venus Transit Aureole

Venus Transit Aureole
Venus Transit Aureole

After having travelled more than 400 kilometers from the Netherlands to a location at the Baltic sea in Germany, I gathered with a group of eight other amateur-astronomers to witness the Venus transit. From europe, we could only see the last two hours. But because of that we saw the most spectacular sunrise ever.

The sketch is made a few minutes after the start of the egress and it shows the aureole phenomene, which was hard to see due to some high cirrus clouds.
But at moments of better seeing, the thin line of the atmosphere of Venus was clearly seen.

The instrument was a 20 cm Newtonian @ 135x. Exact time of the sketch was 5h43’ UT.

Greetings,
Tom Borger
The Netherlands.

Third Contact

Venus Transit - June 6, 2012
Venus Transit - June 6, 2012

Object: Transit of Venus
Location: Pesaro, Italy
Date: 06/06/2012
Pencil on yellow paper, colour and contrast correction with Gimp

The sky was very clean, we coud even see Croatia’s mountains on the other side of coast. Venus was already there at about three quarters of her journey across the solar disc. I used a 32 mm plossl eyepiece to project the Sun on a yellow sheet of paper and marked the sunspots and Venus with a pencil. This drawing pictures the third contact.

Aldo

Misty Star in Monoceros

NGC 2261 - Hubble's Variable Nebula
NGC 2261 - Hubble's Variable Nebula

Object Name: NGC 2261(Hubble’s Variable Nebula)
Object Type: reflection nebula
Location: Oderne – small village in southern Poland (picture made during Winter StarParty in Oderne 2012)
Date: 27.01.2012
Media: graphite pencil, white paper, color invert
Telescope: GSO 10” + Meade 5000UWA 8,8mm
Seeing: 3/5 (average)
Transparency: 4/5 (weak)
Outside temperature: -21*C !!!
NELM: 5,8 mag

This sketch is one of two which I made in most difficult weather conditions. The outside temperature was around -21*C so sketching was very difficult 🙂
On the picture one of my favourite objects – Hubble’s Varaible Nebule which looks like flaming star (around R Mon star).
In telescope larger than 10” you can see small traingle shape mist with some faint structure inside.

Clear Sky
Łukasz

Moon and Venus – May 22, 2012

Moon and Venus - May 22, 2012
Moon and Venus - May 22, 2012

I was in Mesa, Arizona for a few days and on the evening of Tuesday May 22, 2012, at 8:45 pm (local time) I was treated to a fine view of the Moon and Venus before they set in the West Northwest.

A sliver of the Moon was illuminated by the sun and the remainder lit by the gibbous earth (earthshine), a real treat for a mid-westerner like myself. I had some sketching materials with me so I made this sketch of the view on this warm evening 37°C (98°F).

Sketching:

Blue sketching paper, blending stumps, Crayola pencils (assorted colors), oil pastel crayons (assorted colors), Conte’ crayon pencils black and white, white and pink Pearl erasers

Venus was at waning crescent phase on 2 weeks from its solar transit.

Moon phase: 2.2 days old waxing crescent

Illumination 4%

Frank McCabe

Eclipse and Sky Tree

Annular Eclipse - May 21, 2012
Annular Eclipse - May 21, 2012

Two weeks ago, I went to Japan to observe a solar annular eclipse. (My hometown is Korea.)

This picture shows the moment of eclipse before and after.

Location : Asakusa, Tokyo
(The other side of the river, The world’s second tallest building ‘SkyTree’ tower is visible.)

Date : May 21, 2012

Equipment : Naked eye, Baader Solar Filter, 9*63 Finder (http://www.nightflight.or.kr/xe/files/attach/images/25489/324/058/3f36237ec11d646f99a6bd2e94c99a1c.JPG)

Media : Black paper, Colored pencil

Bullialdus and Surroundings

Bullialdus and Surroundings
Bullialdus and Surroundings

Please find attached my sketch of Bullialdus and its near area with some visually prominent craters. It was really intersting to observe these very different craters in one sketch. We can see newer and really old ones too.
Equipment used: 130/650 newtonian, 130x, Meade neutral filter
Media: graphite pencil on white paper
Date: 30th May 2012, UT: 18:20 – 19:10
Place: Budapest, Hungary
Object: Moon / Lunar Craters (Bullialdus, König, Kies, Lubiniezky)
Kind regards,
Judit

—
dr. Hannák Judit

Pickering Crater

Pickering Crater
Pickering Crater

Pickering Crater, lunar crater with 15 km width and 2740 m depth.

Sketched on 29/05/2012, the 8th day after new moon, 1 day after first quarter.
Sketched in Gierle, Belgium between 22u30 and 23u30.
Equipment used: William Optics 80 II FD (555 – F/6.9) on a TeleVue telepod mount, and a Nagler 4.5mm eyepiece
thanks for considering to publish 🙂
Erik van Woerkens