Messier 37

Messier 37
Messier 37

‘m sure that most of my fellow astronomy artists will agree with me when I say that the most challenging objects to draw are complex open clusters. There are just so many stars filling the FOV that it’s nearly impossible to draw them all and most of the time motivation’s already gone before you’ve actually started drawing. But this time I persevered and after more than two hours behind the eyepiece I think that I’ve more or less caught everything that I saw. Well, probably not though because after such a long observation time my head was literally spinning. But here it is:

– Object: M37
– Location: Carù, Italy (province of Reggio Emilia), elevation 770m
– Date: 06 Dec 2013 – 20:15 UTC (start of observation…)
– Media: Ordinary graphite pencil on white paper, followed by several hours of elaboration on the PC
– Equipment: 18″ f/4,45 home-made PeterDob (Galaxy optics), 40mm Siebert VP Echelon 2″ binoviewer and a couple of 24mm Explore Scientific 82° eyepieces (no OCA), resulting in a mag of 85x
– Conditions: fairly cold but the sky was wonderfully transparent. No seeing measured, limit visual mag +/- 6,3

www.astronomydrawings.com

Peter

Guardianes del Diamante Amarillo (Guardians of the Yellow Diamond)

NGC 2451
NGC 2451

Object Name : NGC 2451
Object Type: Open Cluster
Location: Miramar, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Date 23-11-2013
Media : graphite pencil 2H and 2B, scumble, white paper, edited with GIMP 2.
Intrumental: Binocular Braun 12×50

The night was very dark and quite. Luckily, there was no wind and i went outside with the determination to draw one of my favourites open clusters. I always spend a lot of time watching this beautiful object. I really enjoyed it!! Thank you so much!

Agustín

The Talkin Horse

B33, NGC 2023, IC 434
B33, NGC 2023, IC 434

Aloha!

The evening of December 4th (morning of the 5th) was a beautiful night at one of my favorite spots 8 miles from my home on the road to Haleakala National Park. Very clear & very dark. I am finishing up my Planetary Nebula project with Astronomical League and at midnight decided to take a break & try for the Horsehead Nebula again while I was totally dark adapted. Last year I was elated to locate it from my driveway but didn’t sketch it at the time. This year I hoped from a darker location it would be even better, but I decided to just look and not get my hopes up.

After enjoying views of the Flame Nebula I placed Alnitak out of my field of view to the north. Using my 27mm & Narrow Pass Band filter I then placed NGC 2023 to the north inside my view and looked for the 2 – 10th & 13th magnitude guide stars to follow into the Horsehead.
I could see a dim dark patch with averted vision, hood over my head and an eyepatch on the opposite eye. After a short time I could make out the thumbprint of the head with some brightness around the rim and with longer observation a notch appeared to the NW. Some tiny stars also present themselves around the head as well as a linear brightness running N/S through IC 434. I then changed to a 20mm with h-beta filter and more light and dark details of IC 434 appeared, though overall it appeared darker. I got to work sketching & writing up details.

As I was finishing my sketch I heard a “whinnying” sound nearby. I froze because it sounded close and I was all alone. After a moment I realized its an app my daughter has on my iPad that makes horse sounds periodically. It just happened to do so while I was observing the “Horse”! I giggled and ended the night there. What could top that!

B33, IC 434, NGC 2023
Dark Nebula, Emission Nebula, Reflection Nebula
Haleakala Highway 6,000 ft el, Maui, Hawaii
12/5/13 12:00pm, 10:00 UTC
12.5” Portaball, h-Beta & NPB filters, 20mm 76x
Charcoal pencil, charcoal with brush technique, white paper
Inverted with Photoscape software

Cindy (Thia) Krach
Haleakala Amateur Astronomers

Jupiter – November 25, 2013

Jupiter - November 25, 2013
Jupiter – November 25, 2013

Hello,

Jupiter-Season starts…
for me at 25.11.2013.
The conditions were fantastic. I watched with my TMB 115/805 and saw many beautiful details on the big gas-planet.
I enjoyed the time at the eyepiece and tried to record all the clouds swirl. But it was not easy to put everything on the paper.
The clouds train after GRF impressed me very much. Nevertheless, I am very happy with the result and hope that it pleases you.

CS Uwe

Location: Near Tauberbischofsheim, Germany
Telescope: 115/805 TMB refractor
Eyepieces: Baader Genuine Ortho 6mm, 5mm Nagler, 4mm UWAN
Air: very quiet
Transparency: very good
Temperature: – 5 ° C cold north-east wind

Vega and Epsilon Lyrae

Vega and Epsilon Lyrae
Vega and Epsilon Lyrae

I chose Vega in the constellation of Lyra as my first sketch study, as it was the brightest star in my visible night sky (… and 3rd brightest star in the Northern hemisphere night sky after Sirius and Arcturus). I threw the towel in on several sketches before arriving to this one. It sure is different to sketch in the dark! My first attempts had severely mis-plotted star fields, and even though a sketch of the night sky is never 100% perfect, it wasn’t even looking close to what I was seeing in my field of view! An hour and a half later, I was satisfied enough to call this one my first.

I was able to spot the famous “double double” stars of Epsilon Lyrae very easily, as well as a light blue tint to Vega, and some various stars with a light tint of orange. Even though winter is coming along, I could still see part of the “Summer Triangle” asterism with Altair and Deneb.

Object: Vega in constellation Lyra
Date: November 15th, 2013 – 6:30 – 7pm CT
Location: New Braunfels, Texas – back yard
Conditions: 62°F, Clear
Instruments: 10×50 Wide-Angle Binoculars
Medium: Graphite on white sketch paper, inverted
(see the original sketch)

Thank You,
Jen Bishop

Stars of Jen
http://stars.jenbishop.com

Comet ISON: Incoming

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) - October-November, 2013
Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) – October-November, 2013

Object Name: Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)
Object Type: Sun-grazing Comet
Location: Near Grant, AL, USA
Dates: October 8 & 26, November 2 & 11, Before Sunrise
Media: Graphite Pencil on Strathmore Tracing Paper
Equipment: 20″ F/5 Newtonian with 13mm Ethos, 35mm Plossl (Russell Optics), 35mm Deep View (Orion), “Red Light Box” software, i-Pad (for backlighting the tracing paper).
Weather: Excellent Transparency and Seeing on all dates.

These four sketches show the evolution of Comet ISON over time during October-November 2013. At first, the comet was barely visible. No nucleus or dust tail could be discerned, but over time they became apparent. Each drawing is a stack of individual black and white sketches using the indicated filters. They were edited and stacked using Photofiltre and Canvas software.

–James M.

Messier 78

Messier 78
Messier 78

Object Name: Messier 78
Object Type: Reflection Nebula
Location Observatorio Municipal de Mercedes “Ingeniero Ángel Di Palma”, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Date 23/11/2013
Media graphite pencil, white paper, Photoshop
Reflector Newt 6″ (130-900), Ocular BST 12 MM, 75X
Seeing (1-6) 3.
Constelation :Orion.
Local Time: 23:30
Mag: 8.0
Sebastian Castagna
Estación Vientos del Sur
Mi Colección de Meteoritos

C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) – December 4, 2013

C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) - December 4, 2013
C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) – December 4, 2013

Hi Asod! Last night I woke up at 5.00am to observe Comet Lovejoy. I couldn’t see it with naked eye (I think because I observed from city), but it was very bright! I observed it at 90x and 42x and this was the best magnification; nucleus was very compact and more bright than tail. It’s the first comet I’ve ever seen, just wonderful!

Object Name: C/2013 R1 Lovejoy
Object Type: Comet
Location: Copertino (LE), Italy
Date: 4/12/2013
Media: Pencil on White Paper; inverted by Computer