Messier 42 and 43

Messier 42 and 43

Hello,

I recently discovered Astronomy Sketch of the Day, and since I just started sketching I wanted to share my Orion Nebula sketch.

This is M42 and M43 in the constellation of Orion.
Diffuse nebula
Sketch was done in Plattsburgh, NY
Done on February 19, 2012
Large sketch pad, 2H pencil for the stars and Charcoal 557-6B ex. soft for the nebula itself, used a smudge stick to fan out the nebula. Scanned into computer and smoothed out with Gimp to remove the paper texture and round out the stars.

Used a Celestron Omni XLT 150 Reflector with a 25mm eyepiece giving me 30x magnification.
Very clear skies, 4/5 transparency, 2/5 seeing, 30°F.

-Mike Rector