Mars

Venus-Uranus-Mars—Two Conjunctions

Conjunctions of Venus, Mars and Uranus - 11 March 2015 — Conjunctions of Venus, Mars and Uranus – 11 March 2015

Object Name (Venus, Mars, Uranus)
Object Type (Planet conjunctions)
Location (Artignosc-sur-Verdon – Provence, France)
Date (11/03/2015)
Media (graphite pencil, watercolour pencils, white watercolour paper, Paint.net)

I always have issue to find Uranus, without GoTo, it’s not so easy…and I don’t like facility…
Thinks are moving in our planet system. It’s why “planetos” in Greek means “vagabond”.
So I use the opportunity of this double conjunction just a week from each other to find Uranus and its so nice colour.
The Venus-Uranus separation was 5.2’ Venus was 10’000 more brilliant than Uranus, while the separation between Mars and Uranus, one week later was 16.25’
The faint K star between Mars and Uranus is HIP 4325 mag=9.5, so no Uranus satellites were visible with my material.

I sketch the two fields on white watercolour paper with inverted method using a chromatic wheel, orange for Venus, blue for Mars and crimson red for Uranus then I just have to invert the two sketches after scanning. The deal is to manage the colour values in inverted mode.

Clear sky to you all, and for some of you I wish you a nice eclipse on Mart 20.

Michel Deconinck Aquarellia – Astronomie

Planetary Alignment – Mercury, Venus, Mars

Mercury, Venus, Mars - 9 January 2015 — Mercury, Venus, Mars – 9 January 2015

Object Name: Mercury, Venus and Mars

Object Type: Planet

Date: 1/9/2015

Location: A Coruña, Galicia. Spain.

Media: drawing on picture, edited and enhanced with Gimp

Nikon binoculars 15×70 IF HP

SeeIng: 2/5. Some clouds

This drawing shows the planetary alignment in these days. As the picture taken with the phone was very bad, I decided to draw a picture that showed the beauty of the image.
The brightness of Venus is seen against the weaker yellow Mercury. The red glow of Mars came a bit latter and sharing view with it, the star Iota Aquarii showed its pale white light.

Conjunction Venus, Mars and Moon

Object Name: Venus, Mars and moon
Object Type: Conjunction
Location: Mystków, Poland
Date 20.02.2015, ~17:00 UT
Media: graphite pencil, white paper, PhotoFiltre 7

Hello everyone.
This is my latest sketch conjunction of Venus and Mars. The planet was near the moon, one day after the new moon. You can see the moon was light gray. When sketching, the sky was clear, visibility was very good, light wind was blowing.

Smiling Christmas Eve Moon & Mars

The conjunction of the crescent Moon and Planet Mars - December 24, 2014 — The conjunction of the crescent Moon and Planet Mars – December 24, 2014

Aloha,

Every Christmas Eve, my family treks to the top of Haleakala to feel the chill and look for Santa’s Sleigh. This year we went to the 10,000 el to find it a cold 36*, wet, and blowing rain. After a few minutes we jumped back into the car a bit disappointed, to descend the mountain. Right before the park exit the sky had mostly cleared and the winds calmed. There we hiked under the “smiling” Hawaiian crescent. Chilled cheeks and fingers, it was perhaps one of the nicest Christmas Eves ever. This sketch was drawn from my memory of the evening.

In the winter months the path of the Moon is more parallel with the horizon giving the lunar crescent in Hawaii a bowl or smile like appearance when lit from the already set sun. Ancient Hawaiian’s called this the “wet moon” because it looks like a bowl that could be filled up with rain. As the winter moves into Spring & Summer the crescent shifts to “pour” water onto the land, empties and becomes a “dry moon” once more. Wet moons occur routinely in the tropics where the sun and moon rise and set nearly vertically.

3.5 day old Crescent Moon & Mars
12/24/14 1930 HST
Haleakala National Park, Hosmers Grove
Black Canson paper with colored Conte’ Crayon and watercolor pencils

Cindy (Thia) Krach

Webmaster’s note: Wishing all astrosketchers a Very Happy New Year and looking forward to another year hosting all your wonderful observational sketches!

Richard Handy
Jeremy Perez

Mars adjacent to the Lagoon Nebula

Messier 8, "The Lagoon Nebula", an emission nebula in the constellation Sagittarius — Messier 8, “The Lagoon Nebula”, an emission nebula in the constellation Sagittarius

Mars adjacent to the Lagoon Nebula
(Planet and Emission Nebula)
Hartesbeespoort Dam South Africa
28th October (2014)
Graphite Pencil, smartphone photo using the invert function on PS phone app.

In Southern Skies at the moment and made the most of the opportunity to sketch some really nice deep sky objects in and around the teapot including M7 and the Lagoon Nebula (with Mars adjacent to it)

Moon Race Watercolour

July 4-8, 2014 - Conjunction of Moon with Mars, Saturn and Spica — July 4-8, 2014 – Conjunction of Moon with Mars, Saturn and Spica

July 4-8, 2014 - Conjunction of the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Spica — July 4-8, 2014 – Conjunction of the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Spica

* Object Name (Moon, Mars, Saturn)
* Object Type (Conjunctions)
* Location (Artignosc-sur-Verdon – Provence – France)
* Date (2014 from 4 to 8 July)
* Media (Watercolour, white paper, paint.net to invert the result)

From July 4 to 8 Moon played with planets. From a purely astronomical point of view the Moon showed us some beautiful conjunctions, Mars, Spica and then Saturn. By the way the game was a little complicated with the clouds. What a season!
On July 5, the moon was still visible behind heavy clouds. The next day, I have not even been able to detect the moon light ! I had to invent the sky. July 7, when the Moon approaches Saturn, clouds returned to disturb the magic of the moment. I’m a bit fed-up about this weather, and I think not being alone!
The advantage of astro-artist on the astro-photographer is that we can complete our design. This time I have to add the missing lunar position on the view. And to capture those irritating clouds, I painted a hazy wash around the Moon as was the case on July 5.
The small hilltop village that served as a foreground is called Artignosc-sur-Verdon. I confess to being quite happy by this view. Artignosc is just halfway to two now well-known astro-spots “The Blaque” in Varages and the OAB in Bauduen. And ‘cause we are nevertheless in Provence, believe me above the clouds the sky is very dark!
Still … what a season!

To do this watercolour, I went out on my terrace at ten PM every night, sometimes before the storm, sometimes after and once during, being passionate or you do not. Every time I sketched some sketches in a hurry, and took two or three pictures allow me to keep the shades. At the workshop, I started by gathering the different positions of the stars and their locations relative to the village. In less than a week, only the Lunar race was noteworthy, Mars and Saturn are much quieter than the stars. Then I realized in reverse mode (colors and contrast) this watercolour. I just had to scan my sheet and reverse the colors.

http://astro.aquarellia.com

Michel Deconinck

Mars: 02:00UT May 31, 2014

Planet Mars - May 31, 2014 — Planet Mars – May 31, 2014

Mars: 02:00UT May 31, 2014

Average seeing and transparency occurred during the entire observation time.
I was using a 6 mm eyepiece to get the magnification up to 241x.
The color version was made indoors after the graphite eyepiece sketch.

The north polar cap was small and clearly visible. Mare Acidalium appeared very dark and Niliacus Lacus appeared somewhat darker than during my observation one week ago. Sinus Meridiani, Sinus Sabaeus and Margaritifer Sinus were all clearly visible. Clouds were visible over Aeria and the parts of Syrtis Major just visible at the preceding limb. Clouds also covered Tharsis.

Equipment and Sketching:

This is an eyepiece sketch made with a HB graphite pencil, blending stumps, White Pearl eraser on white sketching paper and assorted colored pencils.
Date 05/31/2014 – Time 02:00 – 03:00 UT
Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian on an equatorial platform and 6mm eyepiece 241x with a Neodymium filter
Temperature: 20°C (68°F)
Partly cloudy, calm
Transparency 3/5
Seeing: Antoniadi III

Mars: May 31, 2014; 02:00-03:00 UT
CM 355°, Dist. 0.79 AU
Dia. 11.9”, visual mag. -0.5
Illum. 91.4 %

Frank McCabe

Mars at Opposition 2014

Mars at 2014 Opposition - Chart is comprised of sketches from 19 separate observations — Mars at 2014 Opposition – Chart is comprised of sketches from 19 separate observations

Hello,
I made 19 drawings during the opposition of Mars in 2014, observed T400 x450 750. Prior work finalized in color, I kept on files other than the “gross eye” picture. This allows me to offer two world maps: one color, the other from these crude drawings.
The method:
– Flattening drawings with the “MAP” function IRIS software;
– Creation of a mosaic with a logicile retourche image of the best areas of each drawing.

Bonjour,
J’ai réalisé 19 dessins lors l’opposition martienne de 2014, observé au T400 x450 à 750. Avant le travail de finalisation en couleur, j’ai conservé sur des fichiers à part l’image “brute d’oculaire” . Cela me permet de vous proposer 2 planisphères : l’un en couleur, l’autre à partir de ces dessins bruts.
La méthode :
– mise à plat des dessins avec la fonction “MAP” du logiciel IRIS;
– réalisation d’une mosaique avec un logicile de retourche d’image des meilleurs zones de chaque dessin.

Serge

Please find attached 2 of my recent Mars observations from this week rendered with Watercolour paints.

I used my 153mm Triplet F9 refractor, binoviewer and neodymium filter, 15mm Tele vue panoptic eyepieces yielding 215x.

I hope that they are of interest. Seeing was difficult on both occasions, but I have enjoyed seeing the bright clouds which the refractor has shown ably.

Kind regards, Dale

Do you want to know more about my interest in astronomy? If so take a look at my Website: http://www.chippingdaleobservatory.com/

Keep up to date with observations from Chippingdale Observatory by reading the Blog http://chippingdaleobservatory.com/blog/

Mars: May 06, 2014

Mars - May 6th 2014 — Mars – May 6th 2014

Mars - May 6th 2014 colorized — Mars – May 6th 2014 colorized

Mars: May 06, 2014

Earth’s atmosphere was only permitting a mediocre view at best.
To the south bright Hellas was visible up to the limb. Mare Tyrrhenum, Mare Cimmerium and southern Syrtis Major all appeared dark, contrasting nicely with lighter Libya and Aeria. The northern reaches of Syrtis Major appeared much lighter than the southern parts. Alcyonius Nodus was intermittently visible.
A portion of Elysium could be seen but was mostly cloud covered. Utopia and the North Polar cap were plainly visible. Limb haze was present on both the preceding and following limbs.
It is always a pleasure to view and attempt to make a sketch of Mars.

Equipment and Sketching:

This is an eyepiece sketch made with a HB graphite pencil, blending stumps, white Pearl eraser on white sketching paper. Colorized version made indoors from the eyepiece sketch and notes on the colors needed from colored pencils.
Date 05/06/2014 – Time 04:10 – 05:15 UT
Telescope: 13.1 inch f/5.9 Dobsonian and 6mm eyepiece 333x with a Neodymium filter stacked on a neutral density filter; An Equatorial platform was also used
Temperature: 6°C (43°F)
Partly cloudy, breezy
Transparency 3/5
Seeing: Antoniadi III-IV

Mars: May 06, 2014 04:30 UT
CM254°, Dist. 0.66 AU
Dia. 14.15”, visual mag. -1.1
Illum.96.5 %

Frank McCabe