Name: M1 “The Crab”
Type: Supernova remnant, diffuse nebula
Location: Gardner, CO; 37º50’N 105º11’W
Date: September 7, 2013 0300 MDT
Media: Conté crayon, pencil and ink on black Canson paper
Equipment: 18” Newtonian Reflector on a Dobsonian mount
Observer: Knuklhead Astronomer
Plato and Archimedes craters
Lunar craters
Eastbourne, UK
28th Aug 2013, 01:15 – 03:15 UT. Temperature 12C
Meade LX90 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with 26mm super Plossl eyepiece, 77x
White and black pastel on Daler Rowney Canford black paper
As a little summer holiday project I made a pledge to myself to sketch lunar craters at every opportunity, casually assuming that the usual poor British summer weather would make this an easy commitment to keep. However, I have been kept busy over the last couple of weeks!
I have been inspired by the quality of the sketches on your website and as you can see I am still some way off those standards; however, I am pleased to see (I think) some improvement in my efforts. I sketched this at the eyepiece using the pastels and just my finger as a blending tool.
Yours faithfully,
Oli Froom
Craters Stofler and Faraday
Move cursor over image to view labels.
There are some very fine craters to be found in the lunar highlands among the look-alike craters there. Two that I have included in this sketch are craters Stofler (125 km.) and Faraday (70 km.). Many of the craters in the region have large smooth regions on their floors. The remains of the eastern wall of Stofler form a rampart between older Stofler and Faraday and can be seen near Stofler’s center. The Faraday impact moved the east wall like an enormous excavator. On the south rim of Faraday sit two more overlapping craters, Stofler P (33 km.) and Faraday C (30 km.). That makes 4 fairly large overlapping craters in a small lunar region and many, many more small ones beyond resolution.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, 6”x 11”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils, white pearl eraser and blending stumps.
Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 241x
Date: 08-13-2013 00:10 – 01:50 UT
Temperature: 15°C (60°F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 356.1°
Lunation: 6.9 days
Illumination: 43.3 %
Phase: 97.7°
Frank McCabe
NGC 1325 Spiral Galaxy in Eridanus
Spiral Galaxy
Location: Rush Valley, Utah
December 26th, 2011
Pastel on Black Paper, white pencil for the stars
Conditions on December 26th, 2011 made it so that my friend Mat and I went observing for the night in the West Desert of Utah. Conditions were clear, cold, about 15 degrees F at the time. While we were setting up there was a wonderful Sun Dog in the Western Sky which we took as a good omen and sure enough, we had a wonderful evening. I would rate the sky at an Antoniadi II this night when I sketched this object. I used my Orion XX14i, a 14 inch truss dob, a 27mm Panoptic as a finder and a 10mm Pentax XW to sketch the object. This galaxy has a very stellar nucleus with a bright inner core that is surrounded by diffusion. Nice star to the west of the galaxy and the southwest end of the galaxy tappers and thus had more detail located there. Not a particularly well known or observed galaxy, but one in the Eridanus cluster and worthy of a look if one is there. Who says winter isn’t galaxy season?
2012 05 16, 1300 – 1600 UT .
NOAAs 11476, 11477, 11478, 11479, 11481, 11482, 11484, 11485.
PCW Memorial Observatory, Texas – Erika Rix
www.pcwobservatory.com
Temp: 17.2°-27.8C, calm-N 5mph, clear.
Seeing: Wilson 4.8-4.6, Transparency: 5/6, 50x.
Maxscope DS 60mm H-alpha, LXD75, Baader Planetarium Hyperion 8-24mm Mark III.
Sketches created at the eyepiece with black Strathmore Artagain paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang color pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.
As of this morning, there were 8 active regions on the Sun. Plage and filaments scattered over three quarters of the solar disk with sunspots popping in and out of view crisply as it moved in and out of the scope’s sweet spot. A large diffuse quiet region filament, similar to the one observed on May 6, 2012, was to the SE quadrant reaching out over the limb. Two large bright prominences were located at PA 70 and 115 with several smaller ones scattered around the limb. The prom at 70 degrees had very faint wisps of structure reaching between the three brightest regions.
I had started to draw the full solar disk when a faint pair of prominences to the NW caught my eye. I had accidentally kicked the adaptor that was plugged into my power pack and the mount turned off, allowing the disk to drift across my field of view. When this happened, a huge billow of plasma floated above the limb. It was attached by very slender lines of plasma to the thick fainter prom at the 315 degrees position angle. It had the appearance of a large balloon being blown to the south while tethered to the ground. Tossing my larger sketchpad to the side, I grabbed the smaller pad and quickly sketched this prom. As the course this morning’s observation went on, the billowed top of the prominence changed quite dramatically. I almost expected it to either break free or collapse on itself before my session ended but by the time I completed the full disk sketch, it was still there.
The prominences near 1476 were dense and compact. The plage was very brightly formed as several slender lines within that active region. The main sunspot in 1476 was very easy to spot in h-alpha although the ARFs were very thin and few.
1479 is reminiscent of 1476 several days ago, although the preceding spot standing alone is on the opposite end. Of course, another difference that the sunspots in 1479 are smaller. They may develop more as the days go on. Here’s hoping for beautiful weather so we can keep an eye on it.
Dear Asod,
I send you here attached my sketch of Jupiter made on 5th November 2011. Although the seeing was not so good I was able to see fine details I have not seen before, so that was a lucky day. I have even seen the colour so I decided to make my sketch with colour pastel pencil.
Equipment used: 130/650 SW, 130x
Date: 4th November 2011
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Media: brown shades of pastel pencils used on white paper.
dr. Hannák Judit
I have not sketched Saturn this go around until now because of extremely poor weather so far this year. On Wednesday evening the atmosphere cooperated and I had a scope outside cooling down. I did not have access to any Saturn templates because of a computer crash. So I took out my old mechanical drawing equipment and made an ellipse of the approximate eccentricity of Saturn’s rings and sketched from there. It’s a bit crude but reasonably close to the view. Seeing was good and the atmosphere was transparent. I was able to see Mimas but it was just beyond the way I framed the sketch for posting. Enceladus was about 12th magnitude.
Sketching:
Date: 06/20/2013, 01:45 – 02:45 UT
Sky Conditions: Partly cloudy
Transparency: 3/5
Seeing: Pickering 7/10
For sketching I used 10” x 12” Canson black paper, white, gray, charcoal and black pastel pencils, powdered Conte’ crayons, white Pearl eraser, blending stumps.
Equipment: 18” f/4.95 Dobsonian with a 9mm ortho eyepiece for 250 x.
Neodymium filter and single polarizing filter
Frank McCabe
Today I present two crescents of the two clear nights (12.04-2013 and 15.04-2013). Although … some people think that these sketches are a little … ghostly … 😉
Yours Robert
Sketch details:
Object Name: Two crescents
Object Type: Moon.
Location: Poland, Oborniki
Date: 12.04-2013 and 15.04-2013
Equipment: Newtonian telescope 409/1800 (Capella 41), and 22 mm eyepieces
Object: ? Artist: Robert Twarogal (Ignisdei)
Object Name: Grimaldi, Hevelius, Cavalerius
Object Type: Lunar craters
Location: Twello, The Netherlands
Date: April 23, 2013
Media: White pastel pencil on black paper
It has been more than a year(!) since my last lunar sketch, but on the evening of April 23th I dragged my 3″ f/16 Polarex refractor outside for some good old sketching.
The most prominent feature on the lunar surface was a line of large craters formed by Grimaldi , Hevelius and Cavalerius. Although the Moon didn’t climb higher than 30 degrees above the Southern horizon, magnifications up to 200x could easily be used. High cirrus clouds made the image a bit hazy (and I had to stop sketching after an hour because of thickening clouds) but the seeing was quite good. The sketch was made through an old 7mm Orthoscopic eyepiece (171x). The image is mirror reversed (north=up, west=left).
Clear skies!
Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl
Hi,
I send my sketch of the Moon. The sketch was made on Aug. 25, 2012, by means of white watercolor and dry pastel. That night the moon was 8 days after the new moon. He was low on the horizon but still was strong in my telescope. This is my first picture of the moon.
GREETS
Date: 25th August 2012
Location: Pasry in Poland
Telescope: Newton 8 ”
Media: white watercolor and dry pastel, black paper
