Black Paper – Page 25 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

2010 May 6 Solar Prominences

Solar Prominences – May 6, 2010
Sketch and Details by Erika Rix

2010 May 6, 1900 UT – 2100 UT
Solar h-alpha featuring SE and SW prominences – Erika Rix
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA
DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell

H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Strathmore paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang watercolor pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

T: 27.2°C-21.2°C, H: 57%-64%
S: Wilson 2-4, T: 5.5/6
Clear and calm
Alt: 58.5-37.8, Az: 229.2-259.9

I set up outside of the observatory today since the Sun was moving over the SW tree line and I didn’t want to rush my observing session. I had planned on putting in the cold crops in the garden but just couldn’t resist observing instead.

The active regions and filaments were tempting, but it had been so long since I’ve done close up prominence studies that I decided to concentrate on two limb areas instead. At the beginning of the session, the SW had a larger prominence that looked like a comma hovering over a crooked finger. I decided to move to the SE limb instead because what appeared to be a very bright hedgerow prominence with a smaller prominence beside it, turned out to a very wide set of prominences connected together, with over half of it so faint it was difficult to tease the detail out with the poorer seeing conditions at the beginning of the session.

Seeing gradually improved and I decided to go for a second sketch and just couldn’t help nabbing that comma prominence. It had already changed its shape to where it was no longer a comma, but a large loop instead. I was only able to make out the faintest portion of the loop with my Sol-Survivor cover completely shut around my head and eyepiece.

Mars Pastel Sketch – February 5, 2010

Mars – February 5, 2010
Sketch and Details by Mark Seibold

Technical information regarding the sketch:

At my current residence of Sandy Oregon in the home driveway; 30 miles east of Portland Oregon:

After Observing Mars through my Nexstar 5i and 10.1″ f/4.5 Coulter Odyssey Dobsonian telescope on two evenings of February 5th and 6th 2010, I produced this large 22″ X 30″ pastel impression with artists conceptual Martian landscape showing a dust storm over the polar cap region as science news reported today. The pastel chalks were applied to black Stonehenge 100% cotton cold pressed pastel paper. Through broken clouds over two nights, I eventually rendered most of the prominent albedo features on the martian surface; the left hemisphere edge exhibited a definite blue limb haze along most of the discs edge on the evening of February 5th at approximately 7 UT ~ 9 UT.

Markarian’s Chain

Markarian’s Chain
Sketch and Details by Paul Caucal
Move cursor over image to view labels • Click to view full sketch sheet

Hello!

First, I’m a French man so sorry for my bad english! This sketch was drawn with a refractor telescope 3.2″ APO (80mm) with a 25mm eyepiece (24x,) on azimuthal mount in Italia during my holiday. About the seeing and the transparency, I noted a seeing of 3/5, a transparency of 2/5 and a light pollution of 2/5. Thus, the sky was very good because I was in the campaign. The sketch lasted three hours and forty five minutes, from 21h45UT till 1h30UT. In the eyepiece, there were ten galaxies which three very bright as M84, M86 and M87! Attached, two versions of the same sketch, one right and one annotated with the name of galaxies.

Other information

Object Name Markarian’s Chain (M84, M86, NGC4388, M87, NGC4438, NGC4435, NGC4473, NGC4477, NGC4459, NGC 4461).
Object Type Galaxy Cluster Virgo
Location Figline Val D’Arno, Toscana, Italia
Date 08-09/04/2010 (April 08-09 2010)
Media Drawing on black paper with white pencils

Best regards,
Paul Caucal
Web site: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/univers-iles

Childrens Hubble Drawings

Children’s Hubble Drawings
Sketches by Students of St Peters National School Walkinstown Dublin
Photo by Bernard Kelleghan • Details by Deirdre Kelleghan

Gallery of the Individual Drawings

The 20th Anniversary of the launch of The Hubble Space Telescope was celebrated in St Peters National School Walkinstown Dublin 12 on April 23rd. ESA sent me an enormous print of the Carina nebula, the celebration image for public outreach. A drawing workshop to inspire and educate was the way to go. That morning the boys of 5th class at St Peters listened very carefully to my simple explanation of this visually powerful image. The boys used soft pastels on black paper and lovely blending and feathering drawing methods to capture the swirling clouds of gas and dust 7,500 light years from this planet. Great energy and use of color produced some beautiful drawings, it was a very special event. One child said ‘Its amazing to draw this huge thing on my small page’

Deirdre

Aristarchus & Vallis Schröteri

Craters: Aristarchus, Herodotus. Vallis Schröteri
Sketch and Details by Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

Objects: Moon 88% of full. Craters: Aristarchus, Herodotus. Vallis Schröteri
Date: February 25, 2010
Place: Poland, Wrocław
Equipment: Schmidt-Cassegrain 5″ with Sky-Watcher SWA-58 9mm + barlow 2x
Magnification: About 227x
Seeing: 2/5
Transparency: 2/5
Weather: Good. Light fog
Technique: Pastels on fine art paper
Observer: Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

2010 Mar 26 Full Solar Disk

Solar H-Alpha – AR11057
Sketch and Details by Erika Rix

*2010 March 26, 2033 UT.
Solar h-alpha, AR11057.

PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix.

DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell.
H-alpha sketch created scopeside with black Canson paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang watercolor pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

SW prominence at first glance looked detached. Increasing mag and waiting for steady seeing, I could make out fainter portions of the prominence that reached the limb. There were a few brighter prominence regions scattered about, but nothing of great significance, especially after the magnificent NW prominence last week.

AR 11057 stood out immediately with two dark areas and bright plage. Panning the FOV brought out another bright plage area on the WNW area just 10 deg in from limb. This could possibly be a remnant of 11056. Toward the southern-middle of the disk, brighter little clusters of plage scattered the area, as well a plage to the NW about 40 deg in from the limb. There were a few filaments but the one that really caught my eye was a wide V-shaped one to the SE. I had to tweak the Etalons to bring out the full structure of what first appeared as a single line of filament.

Rising Prominence

Prominence – April 10, 2010
Sketch and Details by Les Cowley

For at least three days April 8-10, 2010 a large and ever-changing prominence rotated into view over the Sun’s NE limb. Its extent in solar longitude must therefore be considerable. Here is its appearance 09:00 UT on 10th April. Sketched directly at the eyepiece of a Solarmax 60 single stacked H-alpha scope 50 – 80X. Daler Watercolour, Studio and Drawing pencils on black Camford paper.

Les Cowley

Mysterious Rupes Recta

Thebit crater & Rupes Recta
Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

Object: Moon. Thebit crater & Rupes Recta
Date: January 23th, 2010
Place: Poland, Wrocław
Equipment: Schmidt-Cassegrain 5″ with S-W SWA58 9mm + barlow 2x
Filter: Moon & Skyglow
Seeing: 4/5
Transparency: 3/5
Weather: Very cold. Light wind.
Technique: Pastels on black paper
Oserver: Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

NGC 5291 – The Seashell

NGC 5291

Sketch and Details by Scott Mellish

NGC 5291/”Seashell Galaxy” MCG -5-33-5
Interacting galaxies
Centaurus
Ilford NSW Australia
21/02/10
56cm f5.0 Dobsonian telescope
Field: 15′
Magnification: 314x
Sky Quality Meter reading: 21:60

Black Canford paper
White pen
White pastel chalk
Soft white pencil
White oil pencil

This strange little pair of galaxies first came to my attention many years ago when I purchased the lovely coffee table book “Exploring The Southern Sky” by Laustsen-Madsen-West. On page 106 there is a lovely negative image showing why the companion to NGC 5291 is called the “Seashell”.

In my 56cm dob it is a struggle to discern any hint of the unusual shape of this object even with averted vision. However this is a very interesting tight pairing and they both viewed quite easily in the 56cm dob.

Both objects I believe are classed as disturbed S0 type.
MCG-5-33-5 is the object to the left of the brighter NGC 5291 as seen in the sketch.

Also of note is the very faint galaxy PGC 4887, this galaxy can be barely seen about 7′ further to the left of NGC 5291/Seashell almost to the edge of the field.

The whole region surrounding this pair is strewn with numerous galaxies of varying brightness and size, all of which are part of the IC 4329 cluster.

I recommend those interested visit the CDS or NED databases if you wish to view the “Seashell” in greater detail.

Scott Mellish

2010 March 18 Prominence

Solar h-alpha, Active regions 1054, 1056
Sketch and Details by Erika Rix

DS 60mm Maxscope, LXD75, 21-7mm Zhumell
H-alpha sketch created scope-side with black Canson paper, white Conte’ crayon and pencil, white Prang watercolor pencil, Derwent charcoal pencil, black oil pencil.

That huge prom was an absolute beauty and I could have spent the entire day sketching it over and over for an animation. As it was, it nearly was so complex that a person could spend too much time on one sketch and end up chasing the changes and never actually complete the sketch.