Astronomy Sketch of the Day – Page 113 – Drawings and sketches of an astronomical nature

The Leo Triplet

Object Name: M 65
Location: RA: 11h 18m 55.9s, Dec: +13 ° 05 ’32 ”
Magnitude: 9.3 Dimensions: 8.0×1.5 (arc minutes)

Object Name: M 66
Location: RA: 11h 20m 15.0s, Dec: +12 ° 59 ’30 ”
Magnitude: 8.9 Dimensions 8.0×2.5 (arc minutes)

Object Name: NGC 3628
Location: RA: 07h 29m 10.8s, Dec: +20 ° 54 ’42 ”
Magnitude: 9.5 Dimensions 14.0×3.6 (minutes of arc)

Constellation Leo.
Type: Galaxies.
Location: Bonilla. Cuenca. SPAIN
Date: March 24, 2012.
Time: 23:50 T.U.
Materials used: Graphite pencil on white paper. Inverted image and processed with Photoshop.
Celestron Telescope S / C 8 “Mount Cgt-5
Hyperion Aspheric 31 mm; Magnification: 65x.
Conditions: MALE: 5.5 (chart 9), Temp.: 4.8 ° C, humidity 65%;
More information: http://astrodibujo.blogspot.com

The Trifid Nebula Close to the Zenith

– M20 – The Trifid Nebula (NGC 6514)
– Emission/Reflection Nebula
– Apparent Magnitude: 6.3
– Itajobi, Brazil
– July 27th, 2011
– 01h00 (U.T.)
– 2B 0.5mm graphite pencil on white paper
– 180mm dobsonian reflecting telescope
– 20mm Super Plossl eyepiece
– Magnification: 54 x
– Seeing: Antoniadi 1 (fine)
– NELM: 5.5

As I’ve already said, July 2011 was a productive month for me. I could observe and sketch many objects as I had never done before. Conditions were exceptional: no clouds, fair wind and pleasant temperature. That night I pointed my telescope to many objects. One of them was M20. Close to the Zenith, it was clearly seen. The dark paths in the Nebula were confusing, though. Only with averted vision I was able to notice the feature thoroughly, so it was a tough job to put it down on the paper. That was my best observation of The Trifid Nebula, I hope you like it.

Clear sky to everyone

Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

Eratosthenes

Object Name: Eratosthenes
Object Type: Lunar crater
Location: Teulon Manitoba Canada
Date: March 31, 2012
Media: graphite pencil, and ink on white paper approx 20cm. x 20 cm. Image flipped and some highlights added with Iphoto
Telescope: Celestron Ultima 8 with binoviewer at ~ 200x

I thought I might try sketching Copernicus that was just on the terminator with a rapidly emerging crater floor, but I was intimidated by the idea of doing that large ejecta blanket. So I chose the smaller Eratosthenes instead which was nicely placed and had some very intriguing shadows. The moon was viewed under very good seeing, but my seeing of the sketching paper wasn’t quite as good– I wasn’t aware that one of my pencils was scratching the paper. Not entirely happy with some of my textures here and my rendering of the southern ejecta, but have run out of time for this, now.

M51 Revisited

Aloha!

One of my favorite objects to observe on dark, excellent seeing nights is M51 & companion galaxy NGC 5195. Seeing was excellent on the night of 3/19/12 & I sketched prominent features of the galaxies from the scope using a red light to see the paper. After returning inside for the night I decided to clean up my sketch & enhance some of the features I made notes on. A few nights later I went back to check on my accuracy.

Although I could see a lot of detail with my 12.5” Portaball, I realized I had over enhanced my sketch. I then stayed at the scope to remove the enhancements that were not accurate. This was a good learning experience for me. It is sometimes difficult to observe & stay dark adapted even with red light, and my visual acuity isn’t what it once was. In the future I plan to sketch, make notes, clean up the sketch with better light but then return to the subject to verify what I have truly observed.

(Cyn)Thia Krach

Object: M51 & NGC 5195
Object Type: Galaxy
Location: Maui, Hawaii ~4,000 elevation
Date: 3/19/12 9:20pm, second sketch 3/25/12
Media: White paper, charcoal & charcoal pencils, graphite. Inverted with Photoscape

Altair83 Observers at Flassans

Object Name (form Orion to Venus)
Object Type (End winter sky)
Location (Flassans-sur-Issole Provence France)
Date (3/16/2012 )
Media (graphite pencil, watercolour, white paper, software paint.net)

During the March 16th night the Flassans-sur-Issole, a nice south France site was sketched with some observers of the Altaïr83 club. The site is mainly used for astrophotography I liked the red light effect of the atmosphere, brilliant eyes and red led. On my sketch we can see from left to right the Orion constellation, the Hyades, Pleiades and near the horizon, Venus close to Jupiter.

I made this sketch using graphite pencil, then I put the red colour effect in my workshop then I had to reverse the sky via paint.net.

Clear sky to you all

Michel Deconinck

Alnitak Region

Dear ASOD folks,

Here’s a nice sketch I managed to do roughly a month ago.

Objects: IC 434, Barnard 33, NGC 2023, NGC 2024
Object type: various kinds of nebulae (dark, reflection & emission)
Location: Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain
Date: 12.3.2012
Media: graphite pencil on white paper, inverted on a computer

This sketch was done under the nice La Palman NELM 7.0 sky using a Tokina 300mm f/2.8 photographic lens. With a eyepiece adapter this lens makes a nice roughly 10cm rich field telescope. I decided to take a glimpse at the Alnitak region in Orion to see if there was any chance to see IC 434. Using a H-beta filter indeed revealed the nebula, which complemented nicely the brighter NGC nebulae in the same field.

More careful observation revealed something unexpected to me. There was a round notch in the relatively sharp east edge of the IC 434 precisely at the location of the Horsehead nebula. Cross checking this feature with friends confirmed it to be real. Being able to see the Horsehead nebula with only a 10cm telescope was really stunning. After all, I had grown up always hearing that seeing it requires at least a medium large telescope. This was truly a lesson that aperture isn’t the last word when observing deep sky.

The sketch is a combination of two simultaneous views of the same field. IC 434 and Barnard 33 were drawn with a H-beta filter whereas NGC 2023 and 2024 were drawn unfiltered.

Best regards,
Jyri Lehtinen

H-Alpha Sun – April 6, 2012

Dear Asod,

I send you here my first sketch made with my L35ST Lunt H-alpha
telescope (not the first one with h-alpha telescopes tho).
I used 57x and 80x zoom for sketching.
The most interesting part was this very long filament, which was there
for 3 days constantly and almost in the same size.
The red-orange parts are showing the lighter areas.

Time & Date: 6th April 2012, UT: 9:30 – 10:00
Media: Graphite and colour pencil used on white paper.
Equipment: 35/400 Lunt H-alpha telescope on EQ2 mount.
Place: Budapest, Hungary

—
dr. Hannák Judit

Messier 93

Object Name : Messier 93
Object Type: open cluster
Location: Petfurdo, Hungary
Date: 2012.03.12.
Media: black pencil on white paper, enhanced with GIMP2.6

This is one of the last deepsky objects discovered personally by Ch. Messier…
Its age is some 100 million years and its distance is about 3600 light years

best regards,
Laszlo Nemeth

Moon Halo and Mars

Location- Dęblin , Poland
date- 02.04.2012
Media- Graphite pencil,white paper, then inverted and processed with PhotoFiltre
Autor-Małgorzata Kurek

Eye of the Monster

Hello all,

The atmosphere appears to be finally drying out here on the east coast of Australia. Viewing from near home on the 24th of April, DSO’s were noticeably easier to see and make out detail in. The clearest for a very long time.

Thought I’d tackle a Monster too. This one’s been taunting me for some time. Teasing through the mushy viewing during the last year. It’s “Eye” staring back in defiance.

Here is my shot at Omega Centauri using my 17.5″. So mind numbingly complex in structure. It’s core shows it’s “eye” looking back, which is washed out in long exposure photos. This is Omega’s most outstanding signature feature.

Alex M.

Object: Omega Centauri, NGC 5139
Scope: 17.5″ push-pull dob
Gear: 16mm Unitron Konig, 125X
Date: 24th March 2012
Location: Sydney, Australia
Media: Pastels, charcoal and white ink on A4 size black paper.
Time: 2.5hrs