Planetary – Page 14 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Saturn in Good Seeing

Saturn - July 19, 2013 — Saturn – July 19, 2013

Hello,

Persistent cloudy, rainy weather here in the Appalachian Mountains has prevented me from seeing most of the best part of this Saturn apparition, but the clouds finally parted briefly earlier this month and allowed this view of the ringed world.

Because Saturn is now well past opposition it is lower in the sky at twilight and well down in altitude after dark, making good seeing imperative for a decent view. I was fortunate this evening because the air was fairly turbulent at sundown when Saturn was still above 30 degrees altitude but got steadier after dark, even though the planet was much lower.

Saturn’s rings are currently tilted at about 17 degrees which gives the observer a good view of the different rings and their features as well as the Cassini Division all the way around.

I got a good look at the North Polar Cap (NPC) but was unable to detect visually the distinct hexagonal shape visible in images.

Four moons were attending Saturn that I could see–Titan, Rhea, Dione, and Tethys. The fifth moon, Enceladus, was there too but hiding in the glare of the rings.

Saturn, among the most beautiful of celestial objects, was a pleasure to observe. There is still time to take in its beauty before the end of this apparition so good luck with the weather where you are!

I made this observational field sketch in my observatory using a template on white copy paper. Pencils used were 2B and HB graphite, charcoal (for the shadows), and a white Derwent Graphtint pencil (for the Crepe Ring).

Name: Saturn
Type: Planet
Location: Twin Sugars Observatory Friars Hill, WV USA
Date: July 19th, 2013

Clear skies,

Michael Rosolina

Early Planets

Mercury, Venus, alpha Libra, Saturn and Spica

Please find here my last watercolour

Object Name (Mercury, Venus and Saturn)
Object Type (Planets conjunction)
Location (Rocbaron Provence France)
Date (December 5th 2012 5:55 UT)
Media (Watercolour on 300gr paper plus white colour for planets)

It was quite cold this morning 1°C but I would like to see the rising of Mercury from my terrace.
Bottom-up we can see: Mercury near the chimney, Venus near alpha Libra, Saturn and Spica .

Clear sky to you all, and if possible, with warmer atmosphere !

Michel Deconinck
http://www.aquarellia.com

C/2012 F6 (LEMMON)

Object Name: C/2012 F6 (LEMMON)

Location: RA: 23h 23m 27.8s, Dec: +63 ° 00 ’50 ”

Magnitude: 9’7

Constellation: Cassiopeia

Observing Location: Pelayos de la Presa. Madrid. SPAIN

Date: July 14, 2013.

Time: 01:15 T.U.

Material used: graphite pencil on white paper. Inverted image and processed with Photoshop.

Celestron Telescope S/C 8″ Mount Cgt-5

Eyepiece: Hyperion Aspheric 31 mm;

Magnification: 65x.

Conditions: NEML: 5.36 (Zone 7 Cep.) Temp.: 16 º C, Humidity 50%

More information: http://astrodibujo.blogspot.com.es/

Conjunction: Pluto and Palomar 8

Object Name: Pluto and Palomar 8
Object Type: Planet and globular cluster
Location: Cherry Springs, Pennsylvania
Date: July 17, 2013
Media: graphite pencil, white paper, digitally inverted
Notes: 16″ Newtonian and 8 mm Ethos ocular, 225x. West left (arrow on sketch), north down. Pluto is indicated between two vertical dashes among stars. The nebulosity is the unresolved globular cluster Palomar 8. Sagittarius. The true conjunction was around 0 UT on July 15; the observation was made around 06:00 UT on July 17.

Comet West

Hey sketchers!

This time I send you an old but interesting observation of a break-up of
nucleus in three parts. This was the bright and splended comet West (1976).
In 50x magn., I could only see a streak in the bright coma, but with power of
166x, I could see the splitting parts of 7. to 8. mag.. Info on the sketch.
I look foreward to comet ISON, but I hope it will survive the perihel!!

location: Trondheim, Norway.
I used watercolor crayons on black paper.

Best wishes and clear sky from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Jupiter from November 4, 2011

Jupiter - November 4, 2011 — Jupiter – November 4, 2011

Dear Asod,

I send you here attached my sketch of Jupiter made on 5th November 2011. Although the seeing was not so good I was able to see fine details I have not seen before, so that was a lucky day. I have even seen the colour so I decided to make my sketch with colour pastel pencil.

Equipment used: 130/650 SW, 130x
Date: 4th November 2011
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Media: brown shades of pastel pencils used on white paper.

dr. Hannák Judit

Saturn – June 6, 2013

Hello nighthawks,

so this is the last Saturn for this season.In the next few weeks, he is no longer very high above the southern horizon. Unfortunately, in Germany the weather was this year very changeable. There are seldom good observations possible, but on 06. June 2013, the conditions were very good and I decided to sketch the beautiful ringed planet without a template. The Plant was 0.57 magnitude brightness and the diameter was 42,8″.

After almost an hour I was happy with the result and I hope you like my second Saturn freehand drawing this year. The main difficulties are to bring the ring system faithfully to the paper.

Always clear skies

Uwe

Here are the details:

Object: Planet
Name: Saturn
Date: 06.06.2013

Conditions: quite air, good transparency, no wind, temperature about 15°C
Telescope: 10″ Meade ACF
Eyepiece: Binocular 18mm Genuine Orthos and 24 – 8mm Baader Zoom Eyepiece
Location: near Tauberbischofsheim, Germany

Saturn and Enceladus

I have not sketched Saturn this go around until now because of extremely poor weather so far this year. On Wednesday evening the atmosphere cooperated and I had a scope outside cooling down. I did not have access to any Saturn templates because of a computer crash. So I took out my old mechanical drawing equipment and made an ellipse of the approximate eccentricity of Saturn’s rings and sketched from there. It’s a bit crude but reasonably close to the view. Seeing was good and the atmosphere was transparent. I was able to see Mimas but it was just beyond the way I framed the sketch for posting. Enceladus was about 12th magnitude.

Sketching:
Date: 06/20/2013, 01:45 – 02:45 UT
Sky Conditions: Partly cloudy
Transparency: 3/5
Seeing: Pickering 7/10
For sketching I used 10” x 12” Canson black paper, white, gray, charcoal and black pastel pencils, powdered Conte’ crayons, white Pearl eraser, blending stumps.
Equipment: 18” f/4.95 Dobsonian with a 9mm ortho eyepiece for 250 x.
Neodymium filter and single polarizing filter
Frank McCabe

Conjunction of Mercury and Venus

Mercury and Venus Conjunction - June 20, 2013 — Mercury and Venus Conjunction – June 20, 2013

Hello sketchers

Here my last observation of Mercury and Venus

Object Name (Mercury and Venus)
Object Type (Planet conjunction)
Location (Val d’Issole)
Date (June 20th 2013)
Media (Watercolour for the landscape and graphite pencil for the planets)

During this very “non cloudy” evening with a perfect transparency, I observed this planet conjunction from my own terrace. I use a 10×50 binocular to find Mercury as early as possible, then with my 102/1000 refractor I begin to sketch this planet that I see with a pale orange light, until masking by the horizon. Some time after, I sketched Venus, with a more blue light. The EP I used was a 40mm to find the planets and then a 10mm SWA to sketch.

What is uncommon here is the apparent diameter of both planets, they looks very similar in size but with very different colours. In fact, Mercury was close to us, nearly between the sun and the earth, and Venus was far further our star.

Michel – http://astro.aquarellia.com

Michel Deconinck

Moon and Jupiter – November 28, 2012

On the night of 11/28/2012 the Full Moon was shining brightly with Jupiter as its companion. The sketch was done while looking through an old (circa 1960’s) pair of Tasco 8-15×50 binoculars which I recently had refurbished. I used the binocs at 15x for the sketch which was done in Warren county NJ, USA on a laptop computer.