Moon and Venus – May 22, 2012

Moon and Venus - May 22, 2012
Moon and Venus - May 22, 2012

I was in Mesa, Arizona for a few days and on the evening of Tuesday May 22, 2012, at 8:45 pm (local time) I was treated to a fine view of the Moon and Venus before they set in the West Northwest.

A sliver of the Moon was illuminated by the sun and the remainder lit by the gibbous earth (earthshine), a real treat for a mid-westerner like myself. I had some sketching materials with me so I made this sketch of the view on this warm evening 37°C (98°F).

Sketching:

Blue sketching paper, blending stumps, Crayola pencils (assorted colors), oil pastel crayons (assorted colors), Conte’ crayon pencils black and white, white and pink Pearl erasers

Venus was at waning crescent phase on 2 weeks from its solar transit.

Moon phase: 2.2 days old waxing crescent

Illumination 4%

Frank McCabe

Eclipse and Sky Tree

Annular Eclipse - May 21, 2012
Annular Eclipse - May 21, 2012

Two weeks ago, I went to Japan to observe a solar annular eclipse. (My hometown is Korea.)

This picture shows the moment of eclipse before and after.

Location : Asakusa, Tokyo
(The other side of the river, The world’s second tallest building ‘SkyTree’ tower is visible.)

Date : May 21, 2012

Equipment : Naked eye, Baader Solar Filter, 9*63 Finder (http://www.nightflight.or.kr/xe/files/attach/images/25489/324/058/3f36237ec11d646f99a6bd2e94c99a1c.JPG)

Media : Black paper, Colored pencil

H-Alpha Sun – April 6, 2012

H-Alpha Sun - April 6, 2012
H-Alpha Sun - April 6, 2012

Dear Asod,

I send you here my first sketch made with my L35ST Lunt H-alpha
telescope (not the first one with h-alpha telescopes tho).
I used 57x and 80x zoom for sketching.
The most interesting part was this very long filament, which was there
for 3 days constantly and almost in the same size.
The red-orange parts are showing the lighter areas.

Time & Date: 6th April 2012, UT: 9:30 – 10:00
Media: Graphite and colour pencil used on white paper.
Equipment: 35/400 Lunt H-alpha telescope on EQ2 mount.
Place: Budapest, Hungary


dr. Hannák Judit

Sporadic Meteor over the Castle of Forcalqueiret

Sporadic Meteor
Sporadic Meteor

January 23, 2012 at 7:37 p.m. local time, I saw this meteor fall. It seemed to fall on the castle of Forcalqueiret in Provence, already so ruined …
This meteor belongs to the sporadic family, no known shower exist at this time of the year. Slow, it has about 3 seconds to disintegrate by emitting a beautiful ocher yellow light.

My sketch was made ​​ naked eye in the cold of this early winter evening. We can see the sky from the Pleiades to the feet of Orion, passing through the Hyades in the constellation Taurus. I tried to take account of different colors like Betelgeuse and Rigel, respectively red and blue. The Great Nebula in Orion also shows a little pink shade than the surrounding stars.

I made this sketch on white paper with caracole pencils, using directly the correct reverse colour black for white, blue for the meteor, light blue for Betelgeuse and M42, and yellow for Rigel. The final work is to invert the scanned sketch.

Michel Deconinck

Web : http://astro.aquarellia.com

Jupiter – December 26, 2011

Jupiter
Jupiter

Hello to all and first of all my best wishes 2012.

I have just discovered your site and simply thank you for the division…

I subject you a drawing of Jupiter made in the evening by 26 decembre on 2011…

Object name: Jupiter 20111226 20 o’clock 39 UT
Rent: Bailly Romainvilliers France dates: 20111226
Media: pencil and graphite pastel
Duration of the drawing: 40 mn
Material(Equipment): binocular Celestron C11 – G280 to G375
Web site: www.astrophotgraphie.com

Notes: what struck me, it is first of all at the level of the SEB (left left extremity of the drawing of bottom). Many of moutonnement, very shambolic and difficult to retranscribe I did not know if it was incomplete ovals either lines overlapping by moment, that looked like a “boxing ring” (term unfit for this latitude I grant it) then, the north temperate zone passed of the color tinted in a slightly brownish color little contrasted according to the observation…

For the NEB, very honestly and even if it is little contrasted, the halving seemed to me very visible…

White spots ( more or less marked ovals) were observed in the moderated south south band (among three of which a visible very clear and well marked all around what could assimilate to a depression)…

Excuse for my bad English

clear skies

Jean-Christophe BIAVATI

Dual Transit

Jupiter Europa Shadow Transit
Jupiter Europa Shadow Transit

On the night of Dec. 20, 2011 I managed to catch a tansit of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter with the shadow of the moon Europa also tranisting near the GRS. The telescope used was a 120mm refractor at 125x while observing in my suburban Orleans, Ontario, Canada backyard. The sketch was done at the eyepiece and later cleaned up in Paint Shop Pro. The colour was added with coloured pencils and pasted into the reversed scan of the original sketch.

Clear skies,
Gordon Webster

A Faint Arc of Light

Lunar Eclipse - December 10, 2011
Lunar Eclipse - December 10, 2011

Aloha,

I got up at 3:50 am this morning – crystal clear skies & not too cold, maybe 50 degrees, out on my deck with my 7×50 binocular. At that time the moon looked like a 25% crescent with the remaining body visible. At 4:10 it was so lovely, just a faint SW arc of light still on the moon & the shadow a dark dusty orange. The sky became dark enough to see stars around the moon – an eerie sight. At ~4:45 the eclipse appeared complete but clouds were coming in & it was even difficult to see the outline but I could still make out nearby stars. The moon just disappeared in totality and was difficult to locate without binocular aid.

Object: Lunar Eclipse
Equipment: 7X50 Nikon Action Extreme Binocular
Date: 12/10/11 @ 4:10 am
Location: Maui, Hawaii
Media: Black art paper, pastels & colored pencils