Mars in Virgo

Mars in the constellation Virgo - April 18, 2014
Mars in the constellation Virgo – April 18, 2014

Hello my Friends ASOD, I observed a few days ago from the home to the neighboring planet, with good views, but with the pollution of the city there are no problems for red small. Continents showed well defined in my scope and feel free to make this sketch giving rise to the original on the right side shown in the image and colored on the other side giving a hue similar to that shown by the eyepiece, for further reducing the image and display framing the view. It was a nice domestic observation learning a little more about our sister planet perhaps.

Best Regards.

Object name: Mars
Object type: Planet
Location: Madrid ( Spain )
Date: 18 April 2014
Hour: 00:30 < 01:45
Media: graphite pencil, Tortillon, processed and inverted gimp 2.8
Optical equipment: Dobsonian telescope Meade Lightbridge 10'' F/5 Eye piece Ethos 8mm + Barlow 2x
Magnification 317x True field 0,3°

http://dibujodelcielonocturno.blogspot.com.es/ web site

Southern Skies Over Bogotá

The southern skies over Bogotá, Colombia on March 29, 2014
The southern skies over Bogotá, Colombia on March 29, 2014

Object name: Crux and Centaurus constellations

Object type: Constellation

Location: Bogotá, Colombia

Date: March 29, 2014 1+30 hours

Media: Digital sketch with adobe photoshop CS2, based on a graphite pencil sketch

Equipment: Naked eye view

Seeing conditions: moonless, transparency 2/3, Bortle 8.

Hello all,

I live in a city with around 9 million of people, just located at 4 degrees north from the ecuador. The light pollution is very intense but I feel also blessed that I can see both hemispheres at the same time from my location. I tried to reproduce the bright of my sky in a clear night in Bogotá and the stars that can be seen in it. I feel I´m improving on Photoshop but there is a long way of trying and learning.

Thanks to all for watching!

Clear Skies.

The Lunar Eclipse From New Caledonia

Lunar Eclipse sketch sequence - April 15, 2014
Lunar Eclipse sketch sequence – April 15, 2014

Bonjour

Beau spectacle que cette éclipse de Lune du 15 avril, observée en Nouvelle Calédonie. Chapelet réalisé au T400x80 pour bien mettre en évidence les couleurs orangées. Dessin aux crayons de couleur sur papier blanc, puis assemblage informatique.

“Hello

Nice show that this lunar eclipse put on April 15th in New Caledonia. Sketch was done using Chapelet’s T400x80 to include the orange highlights in the obvious places. Drawings completed with colored crayons on white paper, then computer assemblage.”-translation by Frank McCabe

Mars Opposition Watercolou​r

Mars Opposition-April 15, 2014
Mars Opposition-April 15, 2014

•Object Name (Mars)
•Object Type (Planet)
•Location (Artignosc sur Verdon – France)
•Date (April 15th)
•Media (Watercolour on white paper, digital tools Paint.Net for the text)

I use my 4” refractor (achromatic) f/10 – 200x to make the initial sketch; sadly the 12” Dobson give me less contrast for this target. Although the full Moon was very bright, (maybe more bright because of the clear sky of my new small village of Artignosc), details on Mars were easy to watch.

After making the first sketch, some locals came in my backyard to have a look, I like that, and sharing beauty is so easy to do.

For this image I use watercolour, on a very humid 300gr paper, I let the pigment floating as I saw the planet colours. The water helps me to give a natural look and feel. Of course this image has no any scientific value; this is just to keep a souvenir of this Mars close passage. Don’t try to compare the little details of my watercolour with reality; I let that to my astrophotography friends, they are so good today!

More info (in French sorry) on http://astro.aquarellia.com

Friendly yours

Michel Deconinck

NGC 3081

NGC 3081
NGC 3081

Hi All,

A while back my eye was caught by an image I saw in Mark Bratton’s Herschel book of what turned out to be a galaxy (NGC 3081) in Hydra, at first glance I took it to be a planetary nebula, something along the lines of the Saturn nebula but without the ansae.

Last night having got band from playing my harmonica at the band rehearsal and with a lovely clear sky I decided to take a look, lying pretty close to the well loved Ghost of Jupiter planetary, it was well placed for me to observe on Tuesday evening.

I found this to be a rather unusual galaxy, having a distinct bright central nucleus and a definite outer ring, slightly elongated E-W but basically a ring, some discernible haze outside of the right but no evidence of any structure connecting the ring to the nucleus or of any arms projecting out from the ring, therefore back to my original thoughts that it looked like a planetary nebula with a bright core, stellar illuminated with a fainter outer shell of expanding debris.

Mars in Opposition

Mars on April 13, 2014
Mars on April 13, 2014

Planet Mars on sunday 13th of april 2014, sketch is made five days after mars was in opposition. We should expect that during opposition – april 8th – the smallest distance between our blue and the red planet is achieved. However, this time the two planets elliptical orbit reaches it’s closets distance on april the 14th.

The sketch is made on sunday the 13th of april 2014. The telescope : TEC 160ED, F8 – 11 mm Plossl eyepiece met 2x Barlow lens. TFov 0.3 °. Afterwards adapted in Pro-create en Psd

Lunar Hide and Seek – Occultatio​n and Lunar Eclipse

The Lunar Eclipse and occultation of April 15, 2014
The Lunar Eclipse and occultation of April 15, 2014

Aloha!

Tonight after setting up with friends and being thwarted by clouds, I raced home to see if I could still observe part of the lunar eclipse from a different location. Upon arriving home I found it was clear and quickly set up my 15×70 binoculars. I was delighted to see h Virginis just peeking its bright head out from behind the limb of the Moon and quickly started a sketch of my observation. The umbra had almost made it over the last portion of the limb and the remaining edge was brightly lit. The Moon took on a coppery glow and the stars shone nearby that normally cant be observed during full Moon.

15×70 Binocular on tripod

Black Stathmore paper, colored pencils & pastels

Thia (Cindy) Krach

Maui, Hawaii

Lunar North Polar Region

Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014
Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014
Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014
Lunar North Pole Region-04-09-2014

Lunar North Polar Region

For several nights this week the lunar North Pole has been tilted more towards earth due to favorable lunar libration in latitude. It has been a good opportunity to view craters such as Whipple, Peary, Byrd and others. I had a clear night with average seeing so I took advantage of the opportunity to sketch the illuminated region near the pole. At my location the Moon was at more than 60 degrees above the horizon which also helped with the time needed to complete a sketch.

Sketching and Equipment:

For this sketch, I used black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9” x 12”, white and

black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps.

Telescope: 13.1 inch f/6 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece (333x) riding on an equatorial platform

Date: 04-09-2014, 01:00-02:35 UT

Temperature: 3° C (38° F)

Clear, calm

Seeing: Average – Antoniadi III

Transparency 4/5

Colongitude 16.2 °

Lunation 9 days

Illumination 63.9 %

Frank McCabe