Posidonius and Northern Serpentine Ridge

Posidonius and Mare Serentatis

With the first clear night in more than one week, I was able to catch the sunset across crater Posidonius (99 km) at the northeastern edge of Mare Serentatis. Posidonius A (11 km.) , the highest of the small central peaks and the tilted and uplifted concentric ridge were the last features catching the light at sunset inside the rim. Also visible and included in this sketch was the northern most portion of Serpentine Ridge. As temperatures were falling throughout the night, I found myself stopping to warm my hands indoors not once but several times. The lunar viewing was excellent this night.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and a blending stump.

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece 161X
Date: 01-02-2013: 04:30 – 06:00 UT
Temperature: – 16° C (2° F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 150°
Lunation: 19.83 days
Illumination: 79.6%

Frank McCabe

The Eastern Veil

NGC 6992/6995
NGC 6992/6995

Hey Artists!

I send you the eastern veil in Cygnus seen in my 10 x 50 binocular! (SN – remnant). It was a bit hard to see against the starry sky, but after a time in the dark, I could see it better! Info on my sketch. I used pen and pencil on white paper (inverted).
Location : Trondheim, Norway.

Best wishes from: Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Apollo 15 Landing Site

Lunar Apennines
Lunar Apennines

A small part of the Moon for You!.

Lunar-Apennines with Archimedes, Aristillus, Autolycus, Mons Hadley , Rima Hadley and…. Apollo 15 landing site—one of the most scientifically successful missions!!!

Yours, Robert

Sketch details:
Object Name: Apollo 15 landing site
Object Type: Moon
Location: Poland, Oborniki
Date: 21.12.2012!
Equipment: Newtonian telescope 409/1800 (Capella 41), 14mm ES eyepiece
Object: – Artist: Robert Twarogal (Ignisdei)

M42 Under a Great Winter Sky

Messier 42/43
Messier 42/43

Object Name: M42
Object Type: Emission Nebula
Location: Mt Nerone, Italy
Date: 05/01/12
Media: pencil on white paper

I took advantage of a surprisingly warm January night to sketch again M42 under a great winter sky. Never seen so many details before in this object, many subtle details couldn’t be represented in this sketch. The interesting thing is that the nebula formed a closed ring with a very faint arch of light reflected by the gas.

Aldo

Hickson 98

Hickson 98
Hickson 98

A clear evening sky with the moon not rising until around 11pm local time saw me out in the observatory with Hickson’s on my mind!

My targets were to be 97 & 98 which are found in Pisces just below the bottom right hand corner of the great square of Pegasus. I engaged in my usual process of ‘star hopping’ the scope from rest position to my target. The smaller the hops, with ‘re-syncing’ at each stop the better my chance of hitting small and faint objects.

…Hickson 98 listed as having NGC 7783 as a searchable member my software database told me it wasn’t listed, so I had to slew the scope manually onto the coordinates given and then search for a suspect galaxy group when I got very close, this didn’t turn out to be too difficult and I soon had the 4 members forming a chaining with a few stars on the monitor screen. A star bright enough to display diffraction spikes headed the chain to the north, all very neat and attractive. It turned out that all 4 members are NGC 7783 A-D so that is likely why I could find it; I probably needed to enter the full nomenclature to find it in the database.

2012 Mars Opposition

2012 Mars Opposition
2012 Mars Opposition

Hallo

This year was my first “Mars-season”. At the first observation I was like: “What? How am I supposed to see any details at this tiny thing?” But I stayed persistent and Mars revealed his beauty bit by bit. And at the end I was surprised about the visible details.

Location: Carinthia – Austria
Media: Graphite pencil on white paper. Afterwork and coloration with Gimp2.

NGC 772 – Galaxy in Aries

NGC 772
NGC 772

Object Name: NGC 772
Location: RA: 01h 59m 20.0s, Dec: +19 ° 00′ 28 ”
Magnitude: 10.3
Surface Brightness: 13.9
Dimensions: 7.02 x 4.03
Constellation: Aries
Type: Galaxy Sb

Observing Location: Bonilla. SPAIN
Date: December 9, 2012.
Time: 22:30 T.U.

Material used: Graphite pencil on white paper. Inverted image and processed with Photoshop.
Celestron Telescope S / C 8 ” Mount Cgt-5
Eyepiece:Hyperion Aspheric 31 mm; Magnification: 65x.
Conditions: NEML: 6.13 (Zone 6 Peg.) Temp.: 1° C, Humidity 64%.

More information: http://astrodibujo.blogspot.com.es/

Io Transit in the Mist

Io Transit of Jupiter - November 18, 2012
Io Transit of Jupiter - November 18, 2012

Object Name: Jupiter
Object Type : Transit of Io
Location: Wilp, The Netherlands
Date: November 18, 2012
Media: White paper, graphite pencil, Photoshop

Last night a nice transit of Jupiter’s moon Io was visible from Europe. The transit of Io (and its shadow) started when Jupiter was still very low in the East, but it rose very quickly. Seeing conditions improved and more details became visible. It was a very foggy evening in the Netherlands, but Jupiter just peeked through the mist. The tiny black dot of Io’s shadow was immediately visible. The moon itself became visible when it moved more to the limb of the planet (due to the edge darkening of Jupiter).
I made a small (2″ diameter), quick sketch of the view through my 16″ Dobson at 225x. I later enhanced the contrast and colorised it a bit with Photoshop, to match the actual view through the eyepiece as much as possible.

(It is one of my first sketches of Jupiter, so I sketched it a bit too small. Next time I’ll try to sketch a bigger planet, maybe 4″.)

Clear Skies,

Roel Weijenberg
www.roelbog.nl