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:
Clear Skies!
Rainer