The Horsehead Area with a RFT

Horsehead Nebula Environs
Horsehead Nebula Environs

Object name: IC434, B33, Horsehead Nebula
Object type: dark nebula
Location: Cottage Grove Lake, Oregon
Date: Feb 21, 2015
Media: charcoal and graphite pencils on drawing paper, scanned to jpg

Telescope: 13.2 inch [34cm] f/3.0 on a night of incredible transparency
Eyepiece: 21mm Ethos giving a 1.8 degree field of view
Filter: H-Beta

Mel Bartels

La Luna de los Reyes (Luna Llena)

Full Moon - 5 January 2015
Full Moon – 5 January 2015

When: January 5, 2015 Night of the Magi
Media: Lápizes HB, B2, B6 and difumino
Filled with black background with GIMP

Refractor 4 ”, 30x

1º La noche del día 4 hice un esbozo con los tamaños y formas de los accidentes principales
2º La noche del día 5 incluí todos los detalles que pude en dos horas de observación y añadí muchas notas
3º al día siguiente pasé a limpio.

1 day 4 night did a sketch with the sizes and shapes of major accidents
2nd night of 5th I included all the details I could in two hours of observation and added many notes
3rd next day I went to clean.

Salud y buenos cielos.
Pedro Villamiel
Alcorcón 31 de enero de 2015

C / 2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) – Beautiful Comet!

C / 2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) - 13 February 2015
C / 2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) – 13 February 2015

Object Name: C / 2014 Q2 Lovejoy- beautiful comet!
Object Type (comet)
Location (Oborniki, Poland)
Date (13-feb-2015)
Equipment: binoculars Vixen 16×80
Object: – Artist: Robert Twarogal (Ignisdei)

There was suburban, slightly hazy sky, although it was clear enough, stabilized by frosty atmosphere.

Beautiful and bright comet reigned today on the border of Perseus and Andromeda near the star Alamah. It was a really marvelous, faint shield, perfectly visible in the wide field of binoculars Vixen 16×80. Also appeared quite delicate colour (as in the planetary nebula) such as glimmer of green. The comet looked like a miniature of asterism swan constellation. 4 star: In the left yellowish HD 1152, in the middle blue-and-white Hd 11188, and on the right white HR 526

The comet core flowed through the center of Hd 11188 star. At the bottom of asterism was like miniature Albireo – yellow SAO 37533,

My Vixen showed also almost visible beam which climbed up. This jet (tail of the comet) was extremely faint and diffuse, shooting up like a geyser!

I encourage you to observe C / 2014 Q2 Lovejoy-beautiful comet!

Yours Robert

Conjunction Venus, Mars and Moon

Conjunction Venus, Mars and moon - 20 February 2015
Conjunction Venus, Mars and moon – 20 February 2015

Object Name: Venus, Mars and moon
Object Type: Conjunction
Location: Mystków, Poland
Date 20.02.2015, ~17:00 UT
Media: graphite pencil, white paper, PhotoFiltre 7

Hello everyone.
This is my latest sketch conjunction of Venus and Mars. The planet was near the moon, one day after the new moon. You can see the moon was light gray. When sketching, the sky was clear, visibility was very good, light wind was blowing.

Lovejoy / M76 Rendez-vous.

M76 and C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) - 19 February 2015
M76 and C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) – 19 February 2015

Object Name (M76 & C2014/Q2 Lovejoy)
Object Type (Planetary nebulae and Comet)
Location (Observatoire Astronomique de Bauduen – Verdon – France)
Date (2015-02-19 / 21:00LT)
Media (graphite pencil, on white paper, paint.net and MS Gif animator)

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) animation
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) animation

Once again I had the opportunity to use the fast (3.3) 24″ reflector made by Olivier Planchon. The EP used is a 2″, 31mm Nagler.
The C2014/Q2 Lovejoy comet fades out on its way back. In the same FOV we can see M76 a planetary nebulae. The NGC number is double because when discovered people suspected that this was a double nebulae (NGC 650 & NGC 651). The distance of M76 is still unknown.
During our 1 hour session we were able to observe the displacement of the proto-nucleus facing a nice m= 8.7 K5 red star, SAO 22504. The separation was here only 1’. To make this small gif animation I made 7 sketches to indicate the relative positions.
The light of this star takes 1400 years through the coma to reach our planet while the light takes only 10 minutes from Lovejoy to us.
That was a nice double rendez-vous!

Clear sky to you all!

Michel Deconinck
http://astro.aquarellia.com

Little Girl’s Lovejoy Sketch from Memory

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

Róisín Mulligan is only nine , she had a look at C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy in my telescope for what was really a brief encounter. Like the other children in the club she was queuing up to see their first ever comet. Somehow unknown to me she managed to produce a sketch in the dark in her own notebook , directly from her memory . This sketch surfaced when we returned to the classroom to finish up our meeting. What a great independant effort on her part , everyone was impressed.

Viewed in a 200mm dob, 32 mm eyepiece ( 37X) with a 46 % illuminated moon in the way ! Róisín attends St Patricks National School Bray ,Co Wickow Ireland and is also a member of St Cronans Stargazers Astronomy Club at St Cronans National School in Bray.
Well done Roisin, great work !!

Deirdre Kelleghan

Astronomer
Artist
Educator

Website http://deirdrekelleghan.net

D-1 Moon

Crescent Moon - 21 December 2014
Crescent Moon – 21 December 2014

Hi. Todays I tried smartphone sketch.

My smartphone has touch pen. (Samsung Galaxy Note 2)

Sometimes I use touch pen, draw landscape with moon.

In order to see D-1 moon, I went to mountain at early morning.

And I saw very faint cresent just over the mountain.

It is my first time D-1 moon.. really beautiful!!!

Date :  21 Dec, 2014 AM 06:40
Location : Ulsan, Korea
Equipment : My eyes, finger, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 & touch

Conjunction of Venus and Mercury – 18 January 2015

Conjunction of Venus and Mercury - 18 January 2015
Conjunction of Venus and Mercury – 18 January 2015

Living in Eastbourne, I am lucky enough to have the famous cliffs at the end of the South Downs close by; the panoramic views they afford are ideal for watching sunrises and sunsets, which are frequently rendered even more beautiful by dramatic coastal clouds. On Sunday 18th January I was driving back from a visit to the beach further east at Normans Bay, when I noticed a break opening up in the blanket of cloud to the west. Instead of heading home I made the short detour up to Beachy Head, where I was treated to this wonderfully picturesque celestial scene.

Best regards and clear skies, Oli

18/01/15 18:45 UT
Soft pastels on Rembrandt pastel paper with acrylic paint for Venus

Comparison of Two Sketches of Atlas and Hercules

Atlas and Hercules
Atlas and Hercules

Yesterday evening I could sketch the wonderful pair of craters Atlas and Hercules with charcoal and chalk on black cardbox. This was the second sketch I did of these craters. I had a look into my archive and compared the current sketch with the one done on May last year.

Both sketches have been done with my 5” Celestron MAK. What we can see is the different lighting conditions based on moon age and libration. Furthermore, the seeing conditions last time have been much better than yesterday – I could not go up to 300x yesterday but had to leave it with the 7mm EP.

Clear skies!

Achim