White Paper – Page 127 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Sunspots on the Edge

Active Region 1027 on October 29th, 2009
Sketch and Details by Fred Burgeot

* object : solar spot 1027.
* location : Vendée, France.
* date : 29/10/2009 at 14H15 TU.

Sketch made with graphite pencils (2H to 4B) on white paper. The telescope used is a 16″ Newtonian, equiped with Baader Astrosolar filter, magnification 175X with binoviewer.
It was made during afternoon, when the seeing conditions are currently better than in the morning.
Because of the proximity of the edge, a bright zone appears surrounding the spot group itself.

Best regards,
Fred Burgeot.

Two Domes of Tranquility

Lunar crater Arago and domes Arago Alpha and Arago Beta
Sketch and Details by Balázs Benei

Object name: crater Arago, domes Arago Alpha and Beta
Object type: Lunar crater, Lunar dome
Location: Gyöngyös, Hungary
Date: 2008. 10. 19. 23:20 – 23:40 UT

Hello,

This sketch is one of my oldest, I made it one year ago. The crater and the domes were very easy to find and observe, this triangle is my favourite Lunar area. ‘É’ means north, ‘Ny’ means west on the sketch.
My equipment: 110/800 (4′) Newtonian reflector, 2x barlow, 10mm eyepiece, 160x magnification.

Yours sincerely
Balázs Benei

Three Rings Around a Target

The Southwestern Limb of Moon with Montes Rook and Cordillera
Sketch and Details by Peter Mayhew

Object Name: Southwestern Limb of Moon with Montes Rook and Cordillera.

Object Type: Lunar mountains

Location:

Date: 3rd October 2009

Medium: Graphite pencil on white paper.

Instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 150mm f8 Dobsonian, 10mm e.p. with x2 Barlow.

Seeing: Very turbulent with intermittent stillness.

The Montes Rook and Cordillera with labelled features
Sketch and Details by Peter Mayhew

The moon was 14 days old and this part of the south west limb was the only region under contrast. Craters were only visible when close to the terminator, or if rayed or darkened with basalt flows. The mountain peaks stood out perfectly in moments of stillness. The three concentric mountain rings around the (not-visible) Mare Orientale were clearly defined. I include a labelled version.

Schiller Out of the Shadow

Lunar crater Schiller and environs
Sketch and Details by Giorgio Bonacorsi

(Double click on image for larger version)

Hi astro sketcher how are you? i’m o.k. after long time of personal problem,i finally made a new sketch of Moon with my refractor 80mm/1000 focal lenght,very good instrument for this work.
Excuse me for a long silence but i’m depressed and i stopped my sketcher’s activiti for three monts.But i have followed your great sketches expecially the sketches of Frank,my great Moon’s sketcher.All the sketches was great,compliment at all,in Italy don’t exist one web site for sketchers,the astronomy papers don’t want the sketches, only photos….i hope in future..
Good sketches and clear sky for all!!!!!Great artists!!!!
Two of my Moon sketches are showed at Birr Castle Exhibition in Ireland.You organize one Exhibition in future?
Ciao amici,Giorgio.

Date and site:Pergola,Marche,Center Italy,29 september 2009
Moon phase:Crescent
Scope:Refractor Kenko 80mm/1000 f.
Eyepiece:15mm with Barlow(132x)
Seeing:Good,tubulence,difficult for drawing.
Temperature:Light cold,humidity,no wind.

Shadow of Ganymede

Jupiter with Ganymedes’ shadow and moons Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto
Sketch and Details by Peter Mayhew

* Object Name: Jupiter with Ganymede’s shadow: moons left to right
are Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto
* Object Type: Planet, moons
* Location: York, UK
* Date: 24th September 2009, 20:00 UT

I made a graphite pencil sketch on a white paper template at the
eyepiece, and also noted colours then. Later I scanned this and used
editing software to make the image a negative and then added colour.
The view was as seen through my Skywatcher Skyliner-150mm Dobsonian (f8)
with a 10mm eyepiece, giving x120 magnification and 26′ field of view.

The seeing was pretty wobbly at first but settled. Over about an hour
the shadow of Ganymede traversed from right of centre to left of centre.
I felt very lucky to see this as there was 100% cloud at 19:00 UT and
cloud obscured the view again at 22:00 UT, meaning that clear skies were
only present during the shadow transit. I was surprised at how visible
the shadow was, even at low power with a 25mm eyepiece.

Peter Mayhew

Spinning Like a Pinwheel

M33 (NGC 598) The Pinwheel Galaxy
Sketch and Details by Milosz Guzowski

Hi,

today I want to show M 33 sketch from my 10″ newtonian scope.

Night was good (NELM ~ 6,5 mag) and galaxy shows a spiral structure.

– Object Name (M 33)

-Object Type (Galaxy)

-Location (Poland/Białuty)

-Date (16.08.2009)

-Scope (10 inch Newtonian+10 mm ploosl)

-Medium (Graphite/blending stump on white paper + GIMP processing)

Morning Mars

The Planet Mars on the morning of September 12, 2009
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

Morning Mars Sketch

I was up very early in the morning observing and sketching the moon. When I finished I noticed the planet Mars was nearby the old crescent moon in the sky and since the atmosphere was producing good seeing I thought I’d have a look.
I was pleasantly surprised I could see a little more than the last time I looked so I decided to make a sketch at high power (362X). When I finished the sketch I later found I was looking at a central meridian on Mars of 36°- 40° longitude. So I was looking at: Mare Erythraeum, Chryse/Xanthe and Mare Acidalium on down to the North polar hood. From my sketch you can tell I was not seeing much detail but Mars is already getting interesting with four months to go until opposition.
At 6.1″ of arc and 229 million kilometers (143 million miles) away Mars remains a small target but soon it will be a regular observing target again.

Sketching:

6″x 8″ sheet of white sketching paper, a set of Crayola colored pencils, clean blending stump, and plastic eraser.
Telescope: 10″ f/5.7 Newtonian on a drive platform with a 4mm orthoscopic eyepiece at 362x
Weather Conditions:
Clear, humid, calm
15°C (59°F)
Seeing: 7/10
Transparency: 4/5
Time:
10:00-11:00 UT 9-12-2009
Location:
Oak Forest, Illinois

Frank McCabe

Jupiter and Moons Do a Double Take

Jupiter and transiting moons, Ganymede and Europa
Sketch and Details by Serge Vieillard

Serge made these remarkable Jupiter sketches on the evening of August 19, 2009 while attending an Astronomical meeting in Valdrôme, France. He was using a 600mm scope and was sketching Jupiter and its moons and shadows as they crossed in front of the planet. The larger moon and shadow is Ganymède and the smaller one is Europa.

Jupiter and transiting moons, Ganymede and Europa
Sketch and Details by Serge Vieillard

Serge’s remarks roughly translated are, “Then, Ganymède leaves the planet, Europe having about the same luminosity that the planet has, disappears between the two shadows which are oval in appearance due to perspective. The effect of relief is seizing, one feels the 3D, and the height of the satellites compared to Jupiter which are accentuated by the presence of shadows. Then Europe appears and cuts out in the darkest zones of the limb. It bites the shadow of Ganymède for it is its turn to leave the disc of Jupiter. At this time, the relief is total”.

Jupiter Strip

Jupiter, the Great Red Spot and Io’s Shadow
Sketch and Details by Michael Rosolina

Hello,

This is a strip sketch of Jupiter. Instead of drawing the Jovian disk as a ‘snapshot” in time, I watched the central meridian and recorded features as they rotated past it, giving me an “unrolled” version of a section of the sphere. Since Jupiter makes one complete turn about every 10 hours, this can be a very useful way to keep up with its rapid rotation.

As you can see, much was happening including a transit of the Great Red Spot (GRS), lots of activity associated with the North Equatorial Belt (NEB), and a transit of Io. The Galilean moon itself was not visible to me but the shadow it cast was quite prominent against the bright cloudtops of the Equatorial Zone (EZ).

The drawing was done at the eyepiece on Strathmore recycled sketch paper using 2B, HB, and 6B pencils. Other notes are with the sketch.

Object: Jupiter
Type: Planet
Location: Friars Hill, WV USA
Date: August 26th, 2009

Thanks,

Michael Rosolina

Jupiter in Motion

3D Sketch of Jupiter
Sketch and Description by Fred Burgeot

From several of my sketches of Jupiter, I made a planisphere of this planet and a rotating globe that I would like to submit….The sketches were made between july 20 and august 17 from France with good seeing conditions (4 to 8/10). The scope is a 16″dobsonian (Mirro Sphere) with an equatorial plateform, magnification is 350X with a binoviewer, no filter. 1H15 for each individual sketch, 8H to make the planisphere (handmade), and 1H to map it on a rotating sphere with the computer. My friend Pascal Chauvet helped me in this last task.

Best regards,
Fred Burgeot.

Flat Version of Jupiter Sketch
By Fred Burgeot