Copernicus
Erika Rix
Zanesville Ohio
Charcoal on Rite in the Rain white paper
Drawings From an Antique Textbook
Etienne Leopold Trouvelot (12/26/1827- 4/22/1895) was French born (Aisne, France)
Astronomer/Artist that came to the United States of America in 1852 with his family.
After seeing his drawings, the directory of Harvard College Observatory invited
him to join the staff as a member in 1872. During his astronomy years he made
thousands of excellent illustrations and particularly enjoyed drawing the sun.
Sixteen years before his death he returned to France and died in Meudon, France.
In the history of biology and particularly entomology (study of insects) he was
the person know to accidently release a collection of Gypsy moth larvae into the
woods in Medford, Massachusetts. He was attempting by experimental cross breeding
to give disease prone silk moths the disease resistance of Gypsy moths imported
from Europe. Gypsy moths spread westward and northward and remain a pest insect in
North America to this day. A 9 km lunar crater on the south wall of Vallis Alpes is named for him.
The attached solar drawing by Trouvelot is between pages 10 and 11 as Plate II in
David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897, American Book Company
The second drawing by Trouvelot is between pages 282 and 283 as Plate V-Solar
Prominences in David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897, American Book Company
As mentioned in the preface on page 4 some of the illustrations have been
re-engraved from the Lehrbuch der Kosmischen Physik of Miller and Peters. A number
of drawings in this text are not credited. One titled a “Typical Lunar Landscape
(full Earth) is the third drawing attached.
Frank McCabe
Between the ears of the rabbit
Craters Gutenberg and Goclenius
In the mid 1600’s Johannes Hevelius named this highland region east of the Sea
of Fertility Colchis (Land of the Golden Fleece) within a few years Giovanni
Riccioli named the same region Terra Manna. Two hundred years later both of
these names disappeared as the craters of the region continued to be named.
This lunar surface being erased by the shadow of the terminator early this morning
is between the ears of “The Rabbit in the Moon”. The largest crater with an
illuminated floor is battered Gutenberg, a 4 billion year old 75 km diameter
formation with a large breaching impact crater (Gutenberg E) on its northeastern
rim. East of the crater the widest and deepest part of Rimae Goclenius was glimpsed
as the seeing periodically improved. Domes in this area could not be seen with
certainty due to poor seeing. Southeast of Gutenberg crater Goclenius a 56 km
Nectarian age crater appears round with a floor in complete darkness. Also close to
the terminator are craters Magelhaens through Colombo.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, white and black Conte’
pastel pencils and a blending stump.
Telesccope:10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece (161x)
Date: 4-6-2007 7:08-8:20 UT
Temperature: -1.6°C (29°F)
Partly cloudy, breezy
Seeing: Antoniadi IV
Colongitude 133.2 °
Lunation 18.2 days
Illumination 89 %
Frank McCabe
Two thirds the age of the universe
Drawing Globulars has always been a nerve-wrecking experience to me, so
many stars, all just lighting up for the split of a second in the corner
of your eye, what do you draw, what can you leave out, what the heck do
you really see?
The more delighting it is, when you suddenly realize, not only you
slowly get the hang of it, but the results are actually not even bad,
maybe even some of the better drawings in your whole catalog.
That’s exactly what happened with M 3, creating it was a pain, but the
result is highly presentable – at least that’s what I think!
The most fascinating thing about Globular Clusters is their age, they are
ancient, they’ve seen aeons on their way around the galactic center,
they’ve inhabitated this Galaxy ages before any human being has ever set
foot on this Earth, ages before Earth even existed. Reason enough to
catch a fleeting glimpse of those objects – measured by our lifespan,
not by theirs, they’re gonna be around long after the human race has
vanished again into the void.
Sebastian Lehner
Date: April 09, 2007
Location: Kegelhaus, Erbendorf, Bavaria, Germany
Instrument: Dobsonian 8″ f/6
Constellation: Canes venatici
Seeing: II of VI
Transparency: III of VI
NELM: 5m5
Magnificaton: 133x
Stealing the flame from Prometheus
Observed from Athens through my double stacked PST/ SolarMax 40/TMax Filter at
60X (6.7mm U.W).I took this sketch. This large prominence was on the North limb of
the sun on Wednesday 25th April ’07 was great and beautiful.
Sketch was made large on A4 black cartridge paper using colored pastel.
Coloration was enhanced and processed in Photoshop, after leaving the eyepiece.
Peter Desypris
A photogenic pair
Theophilus and Cyrillus at Sunrise
Sketched over a 1.5 hour period at the eyepiece on Sunday April 22,
2007. (2:30 to 4:00 UT 23/04/2007) More time spent afterwards
colouring in shadow regions etc. Done with graphite pencils (4H to
4B), black ink and whiteout on white paper. Scope was Celestron
9.25, binoviewer, 2x barlow, and 24mm eyepieces. Picture was
reversed left to right once scanned to give a upright and correct
left/right view.
At the public star party last month (March) with the moon at the same
phase, I used a similar scope setup trained on these same craters to
illicit some “oohs” and “wows” from the crowd. After spending most of
the time looking at these craters I realized that the pair was quite
‘photogenic’ and would make for a nice sketch. This month, they were
even more strategically placed to reveal the terrain. The smaller
crater Madler was also quite interesting and included. One thing that
made this sketch a bit out of the ordinary was the unusual interior to
Cyrillus which has some unusual landscapes near the border with
Theophilus. The light and shadows between Theophilus and the terminator
was also unusual and complicated. My first sketch in over a year; it
seems I’m slowing up. Taking this much time to capture all the details
is not the best for accuracy on transient lighting on lunar features.
Gerry Smerchanski
A bridge of light to a city of stars
First light sketch of Messier 3 with a 16″ Meade Lightbridge telescope
Messier 3
Date: 4/20/07
Seeing: 3/5
Transparency: 4/5
Telescope:Meade 16″ Lightbridge F/4.5
Eyepiece: Meade 8.8mm Uwa
210 x
Sal Grasso
Darkness over Swansea
The lunar eclipse of March 2007 fell over midnight of the 3rd and 4th,
the Moon being in Leo, and in the mouth of the Lion was the planet Saturn. The
sketch is based around 00.30 hours UT, sketched at the top of 600 foot high Kilvey
Hill. The path leading to the summit has a cluster of communication masts on one
side and a Bronze Age burial chamber, now only just visible above the surface, on
the other side. Standing there between the two, looking at the eclipse with the
City of Swansea spread out below, all was very quiet and for once it was a very
clear sky. It felt like a scene out of the fifties TV sci-fi series ‘Quatermass’.
J.E. Thomas
Category: Moon – Total Eclipse
Title: ‘Darkness Over Swansea’
Media: Conte Pastel Pencil on Black Camford Paper
Size: 142 kb
Fire in the sky
I used a Watec 120N deep sky video camera running through a Synta 6″ F5 refractor to display a real time image of ‘The Flame Nebula’ NGC 2024 on a TV monitor. This image was Superior to that at the eyepiece of my 14″ F5 Newtonian on which the refractor rode even when employing a UHC filter!
Using light weight black card, white watercolour pencils and blending stumps I attempted to record the spectacle as best I could, resulting in this scanned and totally unprocessed image.
Dale Holt
Shadow on the cloudtops
Jupiter/Io Shadow Transit
With its large apparent diameter, turbulent belts and zones, and Great Red Spot,
Jupiter is a fascinating object to observe. This fascination goes up another notch
when one of the four Galilean moons makes a transit across the Jovian disk.
A transit occurs when the orbit of one of Jupiter’s moons takes it across the face
of the planet as seen from our vantage point here on Earth. The moon itself can be
hard to detect, but the inky black shadow that it casts on the planet’s cloud tops
is easily seen with most telescopes.
In the hour of time recorded in the sketch, Jupiter is rotating from left
(following) to right (preceding). Because the Great Red Spot happened to be visible
during the transit, the observer can get a sense of the incredible rotational speed
of this giant planet–one complete rotation about every ten hours!
The sketch was done at the eyepiece with 2B, HB, and 9B pencils on Strathmore 400
series 80 lb. paper.
Michael Rosolina
Observational Data:
Time: 23 May 2006 0300-0400 UT
Telescope: 8″ (20cm) SCT f/10
Magnification: 254x & 200x
Filters: Wratten #11, #56, #80A, & IL
Seeing: 4-5/10 (Pickering)
Transparency: 4/6
System II: 102° & 138°
Altitude: 35°
Diameter: 44.2″
Magnitude: -2.5