Hi folks,
Here’s my first observation with the SkyWatcher. This rich field scope gives a whole
new perspective on deep-sky objects. With a SP 26mm EP, I get a whopping 2.7 degrees
field of view at a power of x19. I hope you like the view.
Date : March 8, 2007
Time : 20.30 UT
Seeing :2.5/5
Transp. 3/5
Digital sketch made with Photopaint, based on a raw pencil sketch made behind the EP.
N down, W left orientation.
Rony De Laet
http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.
A unique sunspot grouping, AR963, emerged this week and has been dubbed by some “the
Hawaiian Islands”. The large ‘island’ is about the size of Neptune and all the little ones are each about the size of Earth. Atmospheric conditions prevented anything but brief glimpses at the Sun through heavy clouds and gusty winds.
This grouping is definitely one to keep an eye on!
The Sun with AR963
100mm acromat refractor at 48x (25mm Plossl + 2x Barlow).
Graphite pencil on white paper, blending stumps.
Andrew English
I had intended to catch up with Mars in June to begin my
observations and sketches of this exciting opposition.
Unfortunately a long run of poor weather in the UK prevented me
from doing this. Finally I caught up with the Red one early on the
morning of Sat 8th July. It was hard work but I sucked out some
detail in the end from the distant ruby planet.
Dale Holt
Here is the original SPA observation form with all the details about Dale’s sketch:
I was observing Melotte 111 with a richfield scope when I ran into this galaxy.
While being limited to a maximum power of x63, I tried to make the best of the
observation. This galaxy looked rather faint. I needed to jiggle the scope to set
this galaxy in motion. This technique helped me to determine the real shape of this
beautiful but elusive edge-on galaxy. I would like to repeat this observation in the
future with higher powers of x80 and x120, to see if more details are visible in a
four inch scope. I hope you like the view
Date : May 5, 2007
Time : 22.30UT
Scope : SkyWatcher 102/500
Vixen LV Zoom at 8mm
Power : 62.8
FOV: 47′
Filter : none
Seeing : 2.5/5
Nelm : 5.1
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with a digital tablet and PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.
Rony De Laet
http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.
Great comet C/2006 P1 Mc Naught at 08.00 UT on Jan 19th 2007.
The comet rose above the low eastern horizon along with the rosy glow of the
approaching Sun. It was easily visible to the naked eye complete with tail hanging
above a distant telegraph post. This sketch shows the view in 10X50mm binoculars
with a 1 degree long white dust tail pointing at a shallow angle to the NE with the
‘shadow of the nucleus’ feature splitting the dust tail in two. I only had it in
view for 5 min’s before clouds rolled in but what a view it was!
Mag: -1.7 Dia: 3′ D.C: 9 and only 13 degrees from the sun.
Pencil and paper sketch inverted in photoelements.
Thanks
Martin Mc Kenna
N. Ireland
Melotte 111
Hello sketchers,
What is called the second closest star cluster to our sun? Looking at it with a
scope is of little use, because the grouping covers about 5° of sky. Some of its
stars look so bright in a scope, as if one can almost touch them. So here it is, my
impression of this beautiful naked eye cluster. I used the lowest power available,
but even the fov of 3° is not large enough to cover the cluster. So the sketch is a
composite image of overlapping observations. Because of the low power, the sky-glow
washes out al stars fainter than mag 10.9. I hope you like my impression.
Date : May 5, 2007
Time : 22.00UT
Scope : SkyWatcher 102/500
TV SP 32mm eyepiece
Power : 15
FOV: 5°
Filter : none
Seeing : 2.5/5
Nelm : 5.1
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with a digital tablet and PhotoPaint, based on a raw pencil sketch.
Rony De Laet
http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.
On a frosty early morning in the fall of 2006, just a couple of days past third
quarter moon, I selected for sketching a famous old battered region between Mare
Nubium and Mare Cognitum. This region includes four large craters that were
damaged by low flying Imbrium ejecta that caused them to look old and battered
before their time. Nearest the terminator to the north is crater Guericke (59km)
with its flat lava flooded floor that opens to Mare Nubium. Crater Parry, smaller
at 49 km in diameter is older and also flat floored. The other two craters which
look ghostly in the sketch are larger and older and share common walls with Parry.
These craters are Bonpland (61 km.) to the west and Fra Mauro (96 km.) to the
north of Parry. The wall of Parry encroaches on Bonpland and both together on to
Fra Mauro to betray the cratering sequence of these three.
Sketching:
For this sketch I used: copy paper 8.5”x11”, #2HB graphite pencil,
Pink pearl eraser.
Telescope: 6 inch f/ 7.9 Dobsonian at 208x ( first light for this scope)
Date: 10-15-2006 10:30-11:15 UT
Temperature: 0° C (32° F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Co longitude: 190 °
Lunation: 23 days
Illumination: 36 %
Frank McCabe
This is my impression of the Lunar Formation Stofler. It was sketched with a #2HB
0.5mm mechanical pencil on Strathmore Wind Power Sketching Paper. Other pertinent
details are on the sketch itself. I found this lunar feature to be one of the most
interesting that I have seen. It appeared to me, that this piece of lunar real
estate was painted with a giant bulls eye.
Jason Aldridge
A favourable lunar libration put the crater Repsold at a better
perspective than what one usually finds. And finding it on the
terminator made it an object for a quick sketch despite the obstacles.
It was only a few days before a June full moon so the moon was quite low
(from 50 degrees north lat.) even when near the meridian. Turbulence
and generally poor seeing kept things from looking sharp for more than
brief instants. And the mosquitoes were bad enough that at times they
cast long shadows across my sketching paper. Sketch done using
graphite pencils, ink and some not entirely successfull applications of
whiteout. I usually like to take longer with a sketch but the
mosquitoes kept the viewing short. North is more or less up and east is
to the left. Viewed through 150mm f/6 Maksutov Newtonian with
binoviewer, 2x barlow and 23mm eyepieces.
Repsold is a rather large crater at approximately 110 kms diameter that
is known for a prominant rille of the same name that runs through it.
Some of the unusual highpoints in the sunlight of my sketch might be
part of that formation as they are oriented in an agreeable direction.
But being unfamiliar with that extreme limb crater, I cannot say for
certain. Sketching limb craters present its own unique challenges and I
find myself thinking more of the three-dimensionality of the crater as
you are no just ‘looking down’ onto the third dimension.
Gerry Smerchanski
M51
May 29, 2006
Raw pencil sketch (HB lead), negative view lightly processed with
Photoshop Elements
Raw sketch was drawn at the eyepiece
28 inch f4 Newtonian at 710x
Seeing 8/10
Transparency 8/10
Limiting magnitude 6.4
Once upon a time, or last May 29th to be exact, I was lucky enough to
experience one of those amazing nights that we all hope for every time
the sky clears. The sky was dark, transparent and steady and the
temperature was surprisingly comfortable. In short, just about perfect.
But the best part was seeing something new and surprising in an object
I’ve looked at many, many times through all sizes of telescopes.
M51 was near the zenith and looked great at first glance, which wasn’t
unexpected since I was looking at it through a 28″ Newtonian after all –
it should look great! But it looked even better than normal because of
the excellent sky conditions which to me means piling on the
magnification. One of the features I enjoy trying to see within M51 is
the beginning of one of the main spiral arms coming out of the core.
They look like two faint prongs projecting out from the northern side of
the core and quickly blend into that spiral arm. These prongs are
visible in almost every M51 photo which inspired me to try to see them
visually in the first place. I’ve seen them well in a 16 inch scope and
suspect a 12 inch would be able to pull them in too.
At 710x I started seeing small glimmerings of light shimmer in and out
of view within the prongs, like they were studded with tiny, barely seen
stars. But at 31 million light years distant M51 I must have been seeing
something else. Looking at the latest HST image of M51 these objects are
probably HII star forming regions and huge star clusters and probably a
Milky Way foreground star or two.
A brief aside on my sketch – I concentrated on the core area and the
star-like points that glimmered in and out of view and that the farther
from the core I got the less detail I put in the sketch. Also, the fine
textures around the core and prongs are probably an artifact originally
caused by the texture of my notebook paper. The original pencil sketch
was scanned and enlarged about 300%, and then lightly processed in
Photoshop.
Howard Banich
Portland, Oregon
