Category: Pastels

Messier 77 (Cetus A)

Messier 77
Messier 77

M77 / NGC1068 / Cetus A
Constellation – Cetus
Spiral galaxy
Distance – 47MLy
Mag 8.9

Date – 10/12/12
Seeing – Antoniadi III
Transparency – Poor
SQM 21.45 (LM 6.3)
Location – Hartland Point UK
Media – White pastels on black paper.

Telescope – 16″ f/4.5
EP – 8mm Delos x236 TFoV 0.18˚

Sketch notes

Very small galaxy that improved with lots of magnification. Bright core makes it an easy find even with low mag EP’s.

High level cloud made the transparency poor making it very difficult to see any detail but I could just make out a couple spiral arms inside the halo of the galaxy.

Very nice object and will go back to under better conditions.

Rupes Recta at Sunrise

Rupes Recta
Rupes Recta

I set up to sketch Rupes Recta on the floor of Mare Nubium. From the eastern edge of Mare Nubium you can see the triplet craters, Thebit (57 km), A and L. Next moving westward is the Imbrian escarpment Rupes Recta , not a true wall in the usual sense but on one side standing more than 300 meters high at some locations and 114 km in length. The scarp face would be visible from the rim of young crater Birt’s (17 km) to the west of “straight wall” if you could get there. Touching the rim of Birt to the east is Birt A.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Canson paper (8” x 10”), white and black pastel pencils, assorted erasers, and blending stumps

Telescope: 13.1” f/6 Dobsonian working at 222X (9mm ocular)
Date: 11-22-2012 01:00-02:45 UT Temperature: 12°C (54°F)
Hazy, slightly breezy
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude 10.1 °
Lunation 8.1 days
Illumination 64.9%
Alt. 45°

Frank McCabe

Monster Prominence

Solar Prominence - July 27, 2012
Solar Prominence - July 27, 2012

Object Name: Prominence
Object Type: Large plasma eruption on the solar surface
Location: Deventer, The Netherlands
Date: July 27, 2012
Media: White pastel pencil on black paper

This morning I aimed my 70mm solar telescope at the sun and I almost got blown away by what I saw. I GIANT prominence on the north eastern limb. I hovered above the surface like a huge dragon. I made a sketch with white pastels on black paper, color added and orientation-flip with Photoshop.

Clear skies!

Roel Weijenberg,
Deventer, The Netherlands
www.roelblog.nl

The Sun of november the 7th

H-Alpha Sun - November 7, 2012
H-Alpha Sun - November 7, 2012

Object Name (Sun)
Object Type (H alpha regio…)
Location (Rocbaron in Provence – France)
Date (2012 Nov 7th)
Media (graphite pencil for the prominences, pastel on white paper for the solar texture, Paint.net as digital tool)
Scope My new Lunt LS35THa/B600 on motorized EQ3 mount with 10mm eyepiece.

I made a pastel texture on CàGrain Canson white paper to imitate the solar surface, and I sketched the proeminences on another paper with graphite pencil. Then I combine both digitalized sketches via Paint.net respecting the 3 bright areas. I cheat a little bit regarding the color pushing my sketch to orange which is maybe more convenient for the contrasts.

Clear sky to you all !

Michel Deconinck
http://www.aquarellia.com

Craters Lansberg and Reinhold

Craters Lansberg and Reinhold
Craters Lansberg and Reinhold

Both of these craters look similar when their floors are in shadow as was the case when I viewed them. Lansberg (40 km) is a walled plain crater sitting where Mare Insularum meets south Imbrium. This old impact dates back to the Upper Imbrian and is near the center of my sketch. Reinhold (49 km) is a prominent lunar impact crater of the Eratosthenian period and is also on Mare Insularum. It is below Lansberg near the bottom center of the sketch which by direction is north as per the inverted Newtonian telescope view. At the top of the sketch (south) I was able to catch the Riphaeus Mountains receiving first light during this waxing gibbous phase.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Canson paper 9″x 10″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps. Sketch was scanned

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 6 mm eyepiece 242x
Date: 10-25-2012, 00:30 – 01:25 UT
Temperature: 16°C (60° F)
hazy, high clouds, calm
Seeing: average Antoniadi III
Transparency: poor
Colongitude: 29.0 °
Lunation: 9.52 days
Illumination: 79.0 %

Frank McCabe

A Conjunction with Some History

Conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran
Conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran

At the last day of October I sketched a beautiful conjunction between the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran. The building in the foreground was my holiday-resort (illuminated by a streetlight), a renovated farm from 1669. By chance: in the first months of 1669 Jupiter was also next to Aldebaran in the sky. So the first inhabitants could have witnessed a similar conjunction. To add some more history: the location was less than 10 km from Middelburg, the town where the telescope was invented!

Clear skies

Jef De Wit

Location: Biggekerke, Netherlands (51°29’ N 3°31’ E)
Date and time: 31 October 2012 around 19.30 UT
Equipment: naked eye
Medium: pastel pencils and soft pastels on black paper (A4), Jupiter and Aldebaran were brightened with Paint

Eclipse in Tokyo

Annular Eclipse
Annular Eclipse

I went to Japan to observe a solar annular eclipse. (My hometown is Korea.)
This picture is the moment of annular eclipse, the gold ring and the surrounding landscape.

Location : Asakusa, Tokyo (The other side of the river, The world’s second tallest building ‘SkyTree’ tower is visible.)
Date : May 21, 2012
Equipment : Naked eye, Baader Solar Filter, 9*63 Finder (http://www.nightflight.or.kr/xe/files/attach/images/25489/324/058/3f36237ec11d646f99a6bd2e94c99a1c.JPG)
Media : White paper, Pastel, Colored pencil

The Modified Crater Heraclitus

Crater Heraclitus
Crater Heraclitus

The southern lunar highlands expose the ancient anorthositic crust between craters. Centered in this southern highland sketch is the buried pre-Imbrian crater Heraclitus (92 km.) with its unusual central mountain crest. This ridge or crest looks much like the one on the floor of the elongated crater Schiller formed during its shallow angle impact. The ends of Heraclitus are buried under Licetus (77 km.) to the north and Heraclitus D (52 km.) to the south. Its easy to imagine this possible Schiller twin here partly hidden. To the east is crater Cuvier (76 km.) with its smooth floor and western wall pressing in on Heraclitus.

Labeled Crater Heraclitus
Labeled Crater Heraclitus

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: black Canson paper 9″x 12″, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and blending stumps. The scanned sketch is unmodified

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 4 mm eyepiece 362x
Date: 09-24-2012, 00:15 – 01:50 UT
Temperature: 10°C (50° F)
clear, calm
Seeing: average Antoniadi III
Colongitude 11.3 °
Lunation 7.9 days
Illumination: 63.5 %

Frank McCabe

NGC 457 – The Owl Cluster

NGC 457
NGC 457

Owl cluster (NGC457) by Sasan Yekani

September 13, 2012

Object Name ( owl cluster NGC457)
Object Type (open cluster)
Location ( iran,dergajen, 35.058548°N, 51.420321°E)
Date ( September 13, 2012
Media ( white pencil, black paper, yellow pastel)
25mm, 48x , C8-SGT (XLT) Computerized Telescope

Explanation:The first step is enhancing the contrast then increasing the brightness. Making the image black & white requires going to image menu, select adjusments and clicking on the Black&White button. Finally I’m going to add a little sharpness to the image by selecting Sharpen button from the Filter menu.