Graphite Pencil – Page 172 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

A work in progress

The Orion nebula may be one of the most challenging objects in the sky to observe.
The amount of subtle detail it displays is astonishing and it is perhaps one of the
most difficult nebula to sketch.

Edward Holden’s monograph on the central area of M42 (Central Parts of the Nebula of
Orion, Washington Astronomical Observations for 1878, Appendix I) inspired me to
attempt to follow the footsteps of great visual observers of the the past — the
Herschels, Lassell, Rosse, Bond, etc.– and try to capture the wealth of details
seen in my 18″ reflector. I might add that my sketch is a composite drawing made
with apertures ranging from 70mm to a 20″ reflector. A separate drawing was made on
each evening of observing and combined into a single rendering. The Dearborn
Observatory star maps (claimed to go down to the 18th magnitude) were used to insure
the proper “placing” of the details noted with the various telescopes. The
(unfinished) drawing is still a work in progress after two years of observing.
Magnifications on my 18″ reflector ranged from ~60X (40 mm Pentax) to ~460X (5mm
Radian). The lowest power used: 12X with my Pronto 70mm refractor!

I settled on using a graphite pencil after experimenting with charcoal and soft
lead pencils. Nothing fancy here — just graphite on regular (economy) typing
paper from Office Depot. The drawing was color-inverted using my HP scanner and
tinted with the Paint program.

An extended observing session revealed details I hadn’t noticed before. The
remarkable D’Arrest “comets” were visible only when the transparency was good. The
prominent dark “globule” W1 was seen so well through a 24″ reflector one evening
that my first impression was that there was a bit of dirt on the field lens of my
eyepiece!

I hope that in another two years I can finish the drawing.

Dave Riddle

Gibbous Goddess

If you live in the temperate latitudes of the northern hemisphere, you’ve probably
noticed brilliant Venus high in the west at twilight–indeed, it’s hard to miss.
Apart from the phase, little detail is normally visible in the cloudtops of Venus,
due to the glare and low altitude of our “sister planet”.

This year presents the observer with a very favorable apparition because Venus
reaches greatest eastern elongation near the spring equinox. If an observer uses
filters and gets out during early twilight (or even before sunset) while the planet
is still above the atmospheric murk on the horizon, subtle detail can be seen on
Venus.

Even though it is our closest neighbor (next to the Luna) and has been visited by
spacecraft, there is still much that is unknown about Venus. Iti s a worthy target
for any observer, especially during a favorable apparition.

This sketch was made using a 2B and HB graphite pencil, black ink, and a loaded
stump. The sketch was done from an eyepiece diagram based on an intensity scale
where 0.0 = darkest and 10.0 = brightest.

Michael Rosolina
Friars Hill, WV USA

Four days in the life of a sunspot

Here is a small sequence of observations of sunspot 0953 made during 4 days. 0953
turned out to be one of the bigger sunspots of recent time.

Time : see sketches
Scope : ETX 105/1470
Vixen LV Zoom eyepiece at 8mm
Power : 183
Filter : Baader AstroSolar filter.
Seeing : 2/5

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.

Dust storms on a ruddy desert world

With Mars rising in the early morning hours and slowly increasing in apparent
diameter, Mars observers are already gearing up for this apparition, even though
opposition and closest approach are still six months away.

Along with the opportunity to see the bright Martian South Polar Cap, the North
Polar Hood (the clouds surrounding and hiding the North Polar Cap), famous albedo
features like Syrtis Major, atmospheric clouds, and the giant shield volcano Olympus
Mons (the mightiest volcano in the solar system), observers always have the
potential to see a dust storm develop on Mars.

Although dust storms on Mars can become giant planet-encircling storms that obscure
the surface and cut short the observing season (as happened in 2001), they can also
remain regional, expanding rapidly to cover an area the size of the continental US
and then subsiding. At least two regional events occurred during the 2005
apparition.

The excellent set of Mars sketches by Jeremy Perez on ASOD (8 May 2007) prompted me
to look through my own logbook where I found these two observations made three days
before Jeremy’s drawings. This storm had first been recorded by imagers on 18
October in the area known as Chryse, site of the first Viking landing. By the time
of my first observation, the dust had spread south and was already obscuring
familiar dark albedo features.

In the second observation, Mars had rotated about 40 degrees of longitude, but the
dust had been travelling rapidly west, apparently flowing through the immense fault
(4500km/2800miles) known as Valles Marineris which is associated with the albedo
feature Coprates. The dust later spread over Solis Lacus (the Eye of Mars) and on
towards the south polar region but never turned into a global storm.

This dust storm was bright in unfiltered light but observers wishing to track dust
closely need to use red filters–dust is bright in red light. Wratten #23A and #21
filters are good for small apertures of 8″ (20cm) or less. Those with larger
instruments can use the W25 filter.

The sketches were done using 2B, HB, and 4H graphite pencils, color pencils, and a
blending stump on Strathmore 70 lb. paper. The circle templates are 2 inches. I
like to include the line drawing diagram next to my sketch to label important
features without making the drawing too busy.

A dust storm developing on Mars is a fascinating natural phenomenon to see. Good
luck with this apparition and Happy Mars Observing!

Michael Rosolina
Friars Hill, WV USA

Mighty Copernicus

My second (and last) crater so far. Not the most easy to draw, but he was asking for
it. Drawing the moon is a lot more difficult than expected. There are so many
features to pay attention to. I had to stop sketching after an hour, because the
shadows were changing the view.

The image is flipped to match a North down view.

Date : June, 05, 2006
Time : 21.10 UT
Seeing : 2

Scope : ETX 105
EP : Vixen zoom with barlow.
Power : x240
Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.

Solar protuberances

This summer I visited a friend in La Palma (Canaries) and could observe the
wonderful sky that there they have with his telescopes. One of them
dedicated to the solar observation is an apochromatic refractor 120 mm.
F/6,5 (Vixen), it has a filter installed H alpha SolarMax 90 (Coronado). The
day I observed he sun was completely clear, the solar limb was full of
protuberances and brilliant lines that following the magnetic fields. I took
immediately graphite pencil and white paper and began to draw everything
what he saw through the filter. I was very surprised because of the rapid
movement of the needles and arches that seems dramatic veils against the
dark sky. I tried to draw the variation of the forms with the passing of the
time but it was difficult. I will never forget that so magic experience.
You can see the place where I spent a week observing in this web site:
www.astropalma.com . When the drawing was finished I changed it to negative
in the computer and turned it a bit red.
Leonor Ana Hernandez

Naked eye bull

Here is a lawn chair observation under the freezing Austrian sky at 800m asl. It is
a simple but pleasant sketch of the Bull’s face. I was surprised to notice 3 pairs
of stars. The sky was not perfect dark, so there should be more stars to be picked
out from the cluster. Anyway, scopeless stargazing can be fun ! No cooldown time
needed. My legs and hands cooled down anyway at -9°Celsius. (a solid fuel hand
warmer is a must have)

Location : Bischofshofen, Austria
Date: Dec. 25, 2006 , 20.30UT
Seeing: 4 on a scale of 5, Transparency : 4
Air Temp.: -9° Celsius
Naked eye observation
Rony De Laet

http://www.geocities.com/rodelaet, my personal website.

Sundown at Gauss

At one day past full moon old luna was arching it’s way to the high point for the
night when I selected for my sketching target craters along the terminator on the
eastern side of the moon. Six craters larger than 45 kilometers in diameter are
included in this sketch. With only the highest points along the western rim being
touched by sun rays, it is sundown at crater Gauss. With Gauss measuring 177 km.
in diameter it is categorized as a walled plain crater and dates back to the
Nectarian age (3.9-3.8 billion years ago). Southwest of Gauss with the floor in
darkness except for the illuminated central peak we have crater Hahn, a formation
slightly younger than Gauss and smaller at 84 km. To the north of Hahn is a crater
of the same age as Gauss known as Berosus. It measures 77 km in diameter and its
western wall is not as high as that of its partner Hahn. The largest crater on the
western side of the sketch is Geminus at 86 km. It has a low central peak and no
crater rays, although it is the youngest of the craters in the sketch at about 2 billion
years of age. The smaller crater close to Geminus to the east is 47 km. crater
Bernoulli. And finally to the south of Geminus is crater Burckhardt at 57 km. in
diameter with small craters straddling it to the southeast and southwest.

Sketching: Graphite 2H pencils and India ink on
White 8.5”x11” copy paper
Telescope: 10” f/5.7 Dobsonian 6mm eyepiece
Time: 10-8-2006, 5:30-6:30 UT
Colongitude: 101.6°
Weather: clear, calm
Seeing : Antoniadi III

Frank McCabe

Pair of Cherries

The object is “h x Perseii” the double cluster in Persei, through the
telescope it seems to be a pair of cherries hanging on a little tail.

The telescope is a Meade 8″ and observing through a Swan ocular 36 mm
with a big field of vision. I made it with a pencil on a white paper but with some
problems, because the night was very bad, almost covered by clouds moving very
fast, that covered the image through the telescope. It was very hard to sketch in these
conditions, but I was enjoying it very much. This is the original hand made with and
later changed to negative with the computer.

The date: 14 October 2006 in Guadalajara, Spain.

Regards.
Leonor

Globe of suns

7th May 2007. around 20:30UT
Novo Cice, Croatia

This sketch was created on plain A4 paper using graphite pencils and
fingers (for blurring). Later it was scanned and inverted in Photoshop
after some minor contrast and brightness adjustments.
I used 8″ F6 Dobson and 6mm Super Plossl Eyepiece. Magnification was
200x and field of view was 0.25°. Limiting magnitude was 5.50 and
transparency was very good.

M13 is beautiful globular cluster in Hercules. With an apparent
magnitude of 5.8, it is barely visible with the naked eye on a very
clear night. Its real diameter is about 145 light-years, and is composed
of several hundred thousand stars, the brightest of which has an
apparent magnitude of 11.95. M13 is 25,100 light-years away from Earth.

Vedran Vrhovac
www.inet.hr/~vevrhova/english/index.htm