Small dwarf galaxy in Leo

Leo I
Leo I

Object Name Leo I
Object Type dwarf galaxy
Location Budy Dłutowskie – small village in central Poland
Date 10.04.2015
Media graphite pencil, white paper, color invert
Telescope Newton 16” (400/1800) + Speers Waler 14mm
Seeing 2/5 (good)
Transparency 2/5 (good)
NELM 5,9 mag

Leo I is a dwarf galaxy in Leo constellation. It is also the most distant satellite of Milky Way.
The object is extremely hard to observe because of really low surface brightness and also proximity of Regulus.
You need good dark sky and nice transparency to catch this object. It is one of the small “night challenges”

Clear Sky
Łukasz

A Small Compilation of Asterisms

Asterisms
Asterisms

Dear ASOD!

I made a small compilation for some asterisms. These are not popular objects, and few amateur astronomers watching these group of stars. I think, you find very pretty star clusters in these catalogs: Alessi, Teutsch, O’Neal, Harrington, Slotegraaf, Ferrero, Markov, Streicher, ESO etc. You can see a lot of binoculars, and small telescope. I used this telescopes: 15X70 binoculars, 130/650 Newtonian reflector.

The objects you find here on sky:

1 – 03h28m -35°50′ (Fornax)
2 – 21h22m +02°55′ (Equuleus)
3 – 05h02m -31°36′ (Caelum)
4 – 02h29m +29°46′ (Triangulum)
5 – 05h39m -17°50′ (Lepus)
6 – 10h50m -09°55′ (Sextans)
7 – 08h23m +21°50′ (Cancer)
8 – 12h36m -12°05′ (Corvus) “Stargate cluster”
9 – 12h21m -29°00′ (Hydra)

I hope you like these some inserts of my drawings. This is a very interesting and exciting observation project. I wish to clear skies! 🙂

Viktor (from Hungary)

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) – 19 January 2015

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) - 19 January 2015
C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) – 19 January 2015

Hei ASOD!

I send one sketch from january of C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) seen with 50X magn.
in my telescope. I could see two faint stripes in the beginning of the tail.
I used pencil (9B) on white paper and inverted. Info on my sketch.
Loc.: Trondheim, Norway.
I also used 10 x 50 binos, and could see a longer, faint tail to east!

Best wishes from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Messier 5

Messier 5
Messier 5

Messier 5

Object Type: Globular Cluster

Location: Tarragona – Spain

M5 is undoubtedly one of the finest globular clusters we can observe with our telescopes, But I have to admit that I was not able to show all the beauty I saw through the eyepiece, better to take a look for yourselves .

For more details of my observation you can visit my blog:

http://laorilladelcosmos.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/m5-cumulo-globular-en-serpens.html

Date and Time: 2015-05-09, 00h 10m UT

Telescope: SC Celestron 235mm (9.25″); CGEM mount.

Eyepiece: Nagler 16mm Type 5 (x146.88)

White paper, HB2 graphite pencil, scanned and inverted with Gimp 2

Seeing: 3/5 (5 the best)

Transparency: Clear. Rural skies.

Location Constellation: Serpens Caput

Position: R.A. 15 h 18 min / Dec. +02° 05′

Thank you and best regards.

Oscar

Solar Serpent

Solar Filament & Prominence - 26 April 2015
Solar Filament & Prominence – 26 April 2015

Aloha!

I was delighted this morning to find this dark and large filament at the north-eastern limb of our Sun. It had the appearance of a large serpent with foot like projections anchoring it to the solar surface and then visible curving around the limb. The filament is magnetic curtains of plasma hovering over the Sun’s surface, this an especially large and detailed one. I read on the Spaceweather site that the length of the filament would measure the distance from the Earth to the Moon. That’s one big serpent!

Solar Filament & Prominence
h-alpha 60mm Lunt 35x
Maui, Hawaii
4/26/15 0800-0845 HST
Black Strathmore Artagain Paper
White Conte’ Crayon & charcoal pencils, black & white
Photoscape Software to colorize, Photoshop Software to reduce size

Cindy L. Krach
Haleakala Amateur Astronomers

The Foot of the Cross

Acrux
Acrux

On April first at 23:00 hs. in La Matanza, Buenos Aires, Argentina, I sketched Acrux, the brightest star in the constellation called “Southern Cross”, “Crux”, etc. This star is also known, in religious terms, as The Foot of the Cross, due to obvious location reasons.

It’s a nice double-star system done in white paper, with graphite 4B, 2B and HB2 pencils; after edited with Photoshop tool, while observing with a Newtonian SW 150/750 f5 telescope.

I liked the final results, so hope you like it too!

Tomás

Messier 44 with Meade ETX 70AT

Messier 44
Messier 44

Object Name: M44 (Praesepe/El Pesebre)

Object Type: Open Cluster

Location: Leioa (Bizkaia) – Spain

Date: 2015-04-01 / 23h 35m U.T.

Media: White paper, HB graphite pencil, scanned and inverted/processed with Photoshop

Telescope: Meade ETX 70AT

Eyepiece: Hyperion zoom 8-24mm a 8mm (44X)

Transparency: City Skies.

Location Constellation: Cancer

Assessments:I use the zoom eyepiece at 8mm position (44X), center brighter area of cluster and start to draw what I see, initially see little stars, and as I start acclimating sight see more stars and more clearly, some brightest stars and other stars least, I drawing that I saw, the Moon is almost full and does not help in the observation and I greatly clear sky.

Comentarios: Utilizo el ocular zoom en la posición de 8mm (44X), centro la parte mas brillante y comienzo a dibujar lo que veo, al principio veo pocas estrellas, pero a medida que voy aclimatando la vista comienzo a ver mas estrellas y mas claramente, unas mas brillantes y otras menos, dibujo las que voy viendo, el que la Luna este casi llena no ayuda en la observación ya que me aclara mucho el cielo.

For more details of my observation, you can visit my blog:

https://acercandoelcosmos.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/m44-el-pesebre-cumulo-abierto-en-cancer/

Thank you and best regards

Evolution of a Solar Prominence

H-Alpha Sun - 28 April 2015
H-Alpha Sun – 28 April 2015

On April 28th, I had the opportunity to follow the evolution of this very nice and long prominence.
That was made using a very small Lunt in Halpha (35mm) the total sketch time was less than 2h.
The full view sketch was made using black pencils HB and 4B on white paper and with the help of transparent paper for the active zones, inverted while scanning.
For the sun’s “comic” I sketch only on white paper with a HB pencil, I had no time to sketch more details and the other details were quite calm facing the prom evolution.
This kind of exercise is interesting because no space probe, nor camera are programmed or able to send us such a big number of photo’s and so quick. Let’s say this is another evidence why sketch is still an interesting technique, as is ASOD !.

The filament, origin of this prom is visible on the main sketch and on the first one of the sequence, after that the filament disappear. At the end I just add a digital color layer to my sketch with the use of Paint.net.

Thank you to you all for your interest and on top of that thank you to the ASOD team for their work.

Michel Deconinck
http://astro.aquarellia.com

H-Alpha Prominence Sequence
H-Alpha Prominence Sequence