Pastels – Page 2 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Solar Filament – 8 February 2015

H-alpha Full Solar Disk - 8 February 2015 — H-alpha Full Solar Disk – 8 February 2015

Aloha!

The Suns surface has been very interesting to follow the past few days. A fascinating solar filament stretching across the surface is one of the longest recorded, over 700,000 km long. Solar filaments are made up of unstable plasma held above the solar surface by the Sun’s magnetic field.

I was able to observe it for 2 days in a row and marvelled over its sheer size, looking like a tear in the Suns surface. On this day there was also an interesting filament like region near the west limb that was wide and appeared dimensional in light and dark values. The “wishbone” prominence to the north appeared to be from beyond where the limb was visible, the top portion reaching toward the observer.

H-alpha Full Solar Disk
60mm Lunt 14mm 35x
February 8, 2015 1920-1940 UT
Seeing Wilson 4/5
Transparency 2-3/4

Cream colored sketch paper, grey & white Conte’ Crayon, 2B & 6B pencils and #2 pencil. Contrast adjusted in Photoscape.

Maui, Hawaii 4,000 el
Cindy (Thia) Krach

Venus and Mercury After Sunset

Conjunction of Venus and Mercury - 6 January 2015 — Conjunction of Venus and Mercury – 6 January 2015

Venus and Mercury were putting on a great show over several days at my location.
You didn’t need optical aid to enjoy the view of the sky to the southwest. Distant tropospheric clouds are likely responsible for the separate pink/violet pillars clearly visible after sunset for a brief time.
Venus was visible before sunset but Mercury required a darker sky to shine through for naked eye visibility.

Sketching:

Location: Mesa, Arizona
Date and Time: January 6, 2015, 18:15 pm local time
Temperature: 19° C (67° F)
Venus visual magnitude -3.9; distance from Earth 1.6 au
Mercury visual magnitude -0.8; distance from Earth 1.2 au

Assorted color pencils and pastel crayons, blue construction paper cut to size to fit my clipboard,
blending stumps and facial tissue paper for blending, white Pearl eraser.

Frank McCabe

Thor’s Helmet – a Magnificent Apparition

Thor's Helmet - NGC 2359 — Thor’s Helmet – NGC 2359

Hello all,

One thing all astronomers chase is ideal atmospheric conditions. An apparently clear night can present poor transparency or poor seeing due to thermal energy high up in the atmosphere. But every now and then, ideal or even very close to ideal conditions do present themselves, and it gives us the finest view of the heavens.

Such conditions presented themselves to me on the night of January 18.

My first view of Thor’s Helmet, NGC 2359, was four years ago during the Ice In Space Astro Camp. My view of it seemed to me to be a fine one. So much so it inspired me to sketch it straight away! Four years later, presented with a night of exceptional transparency, I revisited Thor’s Helmet as it was right on zenith for me.

WOW! What an image! This night Thor’s Helmet had nebulosity extending in four different directions, not just the two from my first view. So much more structure was apparent, and the nebulosity extended so much further, and so many more stars were visible too.

I’ve also included an image of the sketch I did of Thor’s Helmet in 2011 for comparison. It is this way that the full impact of the differences in conditions between the two nights can be appreciated.

I hope you enjoy this sketch.

Alex.

Object: Thor’s Helmet, NGC 2359
Scope: 17.5” push-pull Karee dob
Gear: 30mm 82° Explore Scientific, 91X, OIII filter
Date: 18th January, 2015
Location: Katoomba Airfield, Australia
Media: White soft pastel, charcoal and white ink on A4 size black paper
Duration: approx. 1hr.

Prominence Extraordinaire! H-alpha Prominence 1-10-15

Solar Prominence - January 10, 2015 — Solar Prominence – January 10, 2015

Aloha!

I think what I like best about solar observing is you never know what you will find going on! This large prominence at the eastern limb appeared extraordinary in its detailed and lacey appearance. Seeing was very good and at higher magnification a network of bright areas appeared, much like a picture of a neuron cell with branching filaments extending in all directions. Tilting Sun Graphics are used to denote prominence location.

Solar Prominence
1/10/15
h-alpha 60mm Lunt
Maui, Hawaii
0945-1020 HST (1945-2020 UT)
Black Canson paper, white & black charcoal pencil, watercolor pencil & Conte’ Crayon
Tilting Sun Graphics

Cindy (Thia ) L. Krach
Haleakala Amateur Astronomers

Webmaster’s note: ASOD is experiencing problems with sketch submissions where the file size exceeds the limit of the ASOD WordPress programs capability to process the file. Please be aware that when this occurs, although we do have some graphic editing programs, large files will result in two or three iterations of resizing, that may still result in a sketch that cannot be downloaded to the ASOD template. Due to the fact that I have a day job, I often put these pages together late at night, and being very tired I have difficulty trying to bring these posts together. Please be aware that we would prefer receiving files that are no bigger than 800 pixels wide. We will always resize your sketch image to 650 pixels to fit on all the the standard protocols for tablets and smart phones. Please make sure the image file size (the number of bytes the image file) contains does not exceed 500 Kilobytes. This will guarantee that your sketch is published in it’s entirety, and on time. If there are any questions, please feel free to contact us here at ASOD, we will be happy to help with any problems that are troubling you with image size issues.

Keep up the great work,

Jeremy Perez
Rich Handy
ASOD webmasters

Young Winter December Moon

During the early part of the current lunation I was observing and sketching in Mesa, Arizona and caught the thin crescent Moon in the southwestern sky just after sunset. Venus was also visible much closer to the horizon but not close enough to the Moon to be included. Earthshine improved and brightened as the hour passed.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used dark blue sketching paper (8.5” x 11”), white, yellow and brown pastel pencils, blending stumps, white Pearl eraser.

Telescope 6”f/7.2 Dobsonian telescope, 28mm eyepiece 39x
Date and Time: 12-23-2014; 18:15 – 19:10 local time
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Transparency: clear 4/5
Temperature: 18 °C (65°F)
Colongitude: 295.3°
Lunation: 1.74 days
Illumination: 4.1%

Frank McCabe

Vallis Schröteri

Hi,

find attached a charcoal and pastel sketch of Aristarchus, Herodotus and the famous Vallis Schröteri. I hope you like it.

Object Name: Vallis Schröteri, Aristarchus, Herodotus
Object Type: Lunar Valley and Crater
Location: Germany, Dusseldorf area
Date: 2015-01-02, 1800-1845 CET
Media: chalk pastel pencil and charcoal pencil on black sketching cardbox
Telescope: Martini 10” f/5 Dobsonian
Eyepiece: Skywatcher HR Planetary 5mm
Clear skies!

Achim

NGC 3372 The Keyhole Nebula

NGC 3372,"The Carina Nebula" aka "The Great Nebula in Carina" and the "Keyhole Nebula" portion of this complex emission, reflection and dark nebula. — NGC 3372,”The Carina Nebula” aka “The Great Nebula in Carina” and the “Keyhole Nebula” portion of this complex emission, reflection and dark nebula.

Hi,

The constellation Carina alone makes it worthwhile travelling to Southern Africa – and the Carina Nebula NGC 3372 is the heart of it – especially for visual observing. NGC 3372 is studded with bright and even dark nebulae. The most impressive to me is a combination of “light & shadow” – the Keyhole Nebula (the famous “eta carina” is the bright star at lower left).

Data:
Object Name: Keyhole Nebula (in NGC 3372)
Object type: Galactic Nebula
Location: Hakos Guestfarm, Namib Naukluft, Namibia
Date: June 1st & 2nd, 2014 (about 3 hours total of sketching)
Media: Pastel and graphite pencils
Optics: 24” Dobson f 4.0, 300x
No filter

Additional aspects:
Field is about 12 x 15’ wide, north is up. To concentrate on object (and not on dimensions) I used a pattern of stars printed from Guide 9 as a template. Pinpoint stars added by image processing software (to replace printed and sketched stars)

More sketches:

http://www.astrosketching.com

Clear Skies!
Rainer

Crater Posidonius at Sunset

Lunar crater Posidonius and environs at sunset - August 7, 2012 — Lunar crater Posidonius and environs at sunset – August 7, 2012

Crater Posidonius at Sunset

On this night I watched the sunset terminator creep slowly toward ring-plain crater Posidonius; in addition I sketched the crater and other features on the floor of Mare Serenitatis. Posidonius (96 km.) is an old upper Imbrian era impact remnant. Its age is underlined by the way shadows penetrate the rim at numerous points betraying impact damage there. The highest part of the rim is on the terminator side of this crater. Sunlight was still reaching Posidonius A and other high points on ridges including one on the inner ring. Beyond this crater to the west and south the great serpentine ridge could be seen in best light. This ridge is made up of dorsa Smirnov and dorsa Lister.
 Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper 9″x 12″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and a blending stump. After scanning, Brightness was decreased just slightly using my scanner.

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 241x
 Date: 08-07-2012, 06:30 – 07:40 UT
 Temperature: 29°C (85° F) clear, calm
 Seeing: Antoniadi III
 Colongitude 147.9 °
 Lunation 19 days
 Illumination: 73.4 %

  Frank McCabe

Biggest sunspot group in 20 years

Active Region 2192, an unusually large sunspot group - October 27, 2014 — Active Region 2192, an unusually large sunspot group – October 27, 2014

Clouds made it not easy to observe the enormous sunspot group AR 2192 in the Low Countries. I had only one good day to observe and sketch this marvel at ease. Thanks to good seeing conditions I could see – despite my small telescope – an impressive amount of detail. I hope the group will survive his voyage on the far side of the sun and give us another beautiful display.

Clear skies
Jef De Wit

Object: Sun
Location: Biggekerke, Netherlands (51°29’ N 3°31’ E)
Date and time: 27 October 2014, around 9.30 UT
Equipment: 8 cm refractor, Baader Herschel wedge, Solar Continuum filter
Eyepiece: 13mm Nagler T6 (79x)
Medium: white, gray and black pastel pencils, a Pierre Noire pencil and a light gray soft pastel on white printing paper, scanned, mirror reversed, contrast adjustments with Paint Shop Pro

NGC 7293 Helix Nebula

NGC 7293, "The Helix Nebula" a planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius — NGC 7293, “The Helix Nebula” a planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius

Hi,

After 4 years of “try & error” with a faint NGC 7293 in the horizon haze of central Europe I finally finished “my Helix”, using the 24” Dobson at Hakos Guestfarm in Namibia. No haze, but 70 degrees high in the sky, the Helix was an impressive beacon, details were easy to report. I wasn’t prepared to see the halo, my template was too small to sketch it, so I had to use a second sheet. Seeing was moderate, I didn’t see the faint background galaxy 2MASX, but… nevertheless I enjoyed it!

Data:
Object Name: NGC 7293, the Helix Nebula
Object type: Planetary Nebula
Location: Hakos Guestfarm, Namib Naukluft, Namibia
Date: June 4th, 2014 (about 2 hours total of sketching)
Media: Pastel and graphite pencils
Optics: 24” Dobson f 4.0
Filter: OIII

Additional aspects:
Field is about 30’ wide, east is up. To concentrate on object (and not on dimensions) I used a pattern of stars printed from Guide 9 as a template. Pinpoint stars added by image processing software (to replace printed and sketched stars)

More sketches:

http://www.astrosketching.com

Clear Skies!
Rainer