globular – Page 14 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

M13, with a 4 inch refractor

M13, The Great Globular Star Cluster in Hercules
Sketch and Details by Rony De Laet

M13 has always been one of my all time favourite deep-sky objects. This Globular is one of the summer highlights for Northern Hemisphere observers. It is bright and it is easy to find. When conditions allow, a four inch telescope is capable of resolving many stars within this spectacular globular. The low power view reminds me of little hairy spider. The cluster seems to show several branches attached to a mottled and fractured core. The core appears slightly yellow to me. With higher power and averted vision, these branches can be partially resolved into faint stars. Then with prolonged gazing, the cluster appears to show a few dark lanes as well. It is a hard task to do justice to this cluster with a sketch : the real view is so much more powerful. I tried to represent the typical low power view, with many faint stars at the verge of resolution.

Site : Bekkevoort, Belgium ( 51° N )
Date : May 29, 2009
Time : around 23.00 UT
Scope : Skywatcher 102/500mm achromatic refractor
Eyepiece : Baader Hyperion 5mm
Magnification : 100x
FOV: 41’
Filter : none
Seeing : 3/5
Transp. : 4/5
Sky brightness : 19.88 magnitudes per square arc second near zenith (SQM reading).
Nelm: 5.6
Sketch Orientation: N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with Corel Paint Shop Pro X2, based on a raw pencil sketch.

Rony De Laet

Stars Like Tiny Pinpoints

M53 (NGC 5024) Globular cluster
Sketch and Details by Kiminori Ikebe, translation by Mr. Eiji Kato

This is a globular cluster southeast of Mel.111 in Coma Berenices. It is fairly large and even at 110x it is finely resolved. This is a beautiful globular cluster with individual stars appearing as pinpoints.
The core shows even brightness and stars are well resolved to the center. North of the center there is a double, but they do not seem to belong to the cluster. The outlying regions in the northern half show scattered faint stars. The southern nebulosity does not show this.

Date of observation: 2000/04/09 02:58 UT
Observing site: Makinoto, Japan
Transparency/seeing/sky darkness: 3/4/4
Instruments: 32cmDB with XL14 at 110x
Width of field: 0.6 °
Kiminori Ikebe

Great Globular

M13, The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
Sketch and Details by Robert Gudański, commentary by Rich Handy

This beautiful view of M13, the Great Globular Cluster in the constellation Hercules, was rendered by Polish amateur astronomer Robert Gudański. The cluster, some 25,000 light years from Earth, contains hundreds of thousands of stars. It’s been said that the core of M13 is so dense with stars that a planet near the center (assuming a transparent atmosphere), would behold a sky full of bright suns. In fact the sky would perpetually be several times brighter than the full Moon. Not quite the place to be if you like Deep Sky Objects!

M13
Synta 8″ dob
WO UWAN 7
Stepnica, Poland
21.04.2009
Robert Gudański

A Globular with a Tail

M71, A Globular Cluster with a Tail
Sketch and Details by Per-Jonny Bremseth

Hey!

Sending you “M71, Globular with tail”.
This observation is from nearby Trondheim, Norway.
The drawing is made with water based crayons on black paper,
not inverted.
I observe deep sky objects only when the sky is clean and
transparent!
Look at info on my drawing!!

Best wishes from Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Great Globular with a Small Aperture

The Great Globular Cluster M13
Sketch and Details by Daniel Stepniak

My sketch of great globular cluster in Hercules, M13. In my telescope it
wasn’t resolved, but the view was fine.

date: September 20, 2007

place: Sochaczew, Poland- suburbs of medium city with light pollution an
star’s apparent magnitude 4,5-5.

equipment: Synta 114/500, NPL 15mm (33x, fov 1,5°), graphite pencil 🙂

A Most Impressive Globular: Omega Centauri

Globular Cluster Omega Centauri
Sketch and Details by Janis Romer

Janis writes:

During the 1985 Astronomical League Convention in Tucson, Arizona local amateur astronomer Duane Nichaus held an open house at his home observatory. This “image” (sketch) was made using his 5.4” clear aperture F/15 folded refractor on the evening of June 18.

An Often Overlooked Globular Cluster M2

M2
Sketch by Janis Romer

Charles Messier made his second catalog entry in September of 1760. M 2 is located in Aquarius a bit less than 5° north of Beta Aquarii. It has a stellar population of 150,000 suns and measures some 175 light years across. M 2 is surprisingly distant for a bright globular cluster at 37,500 light years and has a visual magnitude 6.5. With the eye at the eyepiece of a moderate size telescope, this globular appears 7 minutes across and somewhat oval in shape. It is worth noting for those that observe with a Dobsonian telescope or use an Alt.-Az. mount, that when M 2 is about 175° in Azimuth you can pan your scope straight up 13° to globular M 15 and after returning to M 2 you can pan down 22.5° to globular cluster M 30. That’s a globular triple.
Object: Globular cluster M 2 – Artist Janis Romer – Telescope – Criterion 8” f/8 Newtonian Reflector – Sketching Location: Pennsylvania, USA.

Written details by Frank McCabe

Great Globular M15

M15
Sketch and Details by Eric Graff

Object Name: NGC 7078 (M15)
Object Type: Globular Cluster
Constellation: Pegasus
Right Ascension (2000.0): 21h 29m 58.3s
Declination (2000.0): +12° 10′ 01″
Magnitude: 6.3
Diameter: 18.0′
Concentration Class: 4
Distance: 30,600 light years
Discovery: Jean-Dominique Maraldi II, September 1746
NGC Description: ! Cl, vB, vL, iR, vsmbM, rrr, st vS

Date/Time: 28 September 2008 • 04:30-06:15 UT
Location: Oakzanita Springs, San Diego Co., California, USA
Telescope: Parks Astrolight EQ6 • 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector
Eyepiece: Parks 7.5mm Gold Series Plössl
Magnification: 120x
Field of View: 26′
Filter: None
Conditions: Clear, calm, 62°F
Seeing: Pickering 6
Transparency: NELM 6.4, TLM 14.3

It has been quite some time since I’ve sketched a really nice globular cluster, so after spending a bit of time chasing down a few dubious targets in northeastern Cygnus, I settled on a prolonged observation of Messier 15. The northernmost of the autumn sky’s three “Great Globulars” (the other two being M2 in Aquarius and M30 in Capricornus), M15 is easy enough to locate 4° northwest of colorful Epsilon Pegasi, tucked into a narrow triangle of 6th, 7th and 8th magnitude stars; these are HD 204862, HD 204571 and HD 204712, respectively.

Technically visible to the naked eye (I’ve never seen it thus, however), it is easily visible in binoculars as a slightly fuzzy star. At low telescopic magnification (30x), I see M15 as an unresolved nebulous patch with a blazing center and an irregular, spidery outline in a pleasing starfield. It is an interesting exercise to defocus the low-power field and compare the 6.1 magnitude glow of HD 204862 with the 6.3 magnitude glow of M15. Which one looks brighter to you?

At medium magnification (60x), I am able to resolve perhaps a dozen stars around the perimeter of the cluster. The core remains very bright and highly condensed. The entire face of the cluster is granular with stars just beyond the point of true resolution. Wispy streamers of faint starlight that drift in and out of visibility enhance the irregular outline of M15. At high magnification (120x) scores of distinct stars dance across the face of the cluster, spilling beyond its edges in curved arcs and narrow streams. Overall, the cluster is elongated slightly NNE-SSW with a bright central core. Countless minute suns seethe like a heap of restless diamond dust and several dark lanes crisscross the cluster, particularly toward the NE where several rifts run nearly parallel to one another; a peculiar dark patch SW of the nucleus is also noteworthy. Eighth magnitude HD 204712, 10th magnitude TYC 1127-128-1, and a handful of anonymous 13th magnitude stars share the high power field of view with M15.

This sketch was made on 67 lb. cover stock in a 3-inch circle with #2 mechanical pencil (0.5mm lead), blending stump and black ink (for the two bright field stars).

Globular Cluster – M2

M2
Sketch and details by Wade V. Corbei

Here is a sketch from back in August. As how I am blessed with clouds and rain, I thought I’d go through my sketchbook and start to catch up on digitizing some of my sketches.

This Globular is actually quite a treat in the EP, it is bright, compact and stars resolve fairly easily. Although not as spectacular as M13 or M15, this Globular nonetheless is quite a sight for those who enjoy looking at a gazillion stars crammed into a relatively small space.

The background stars set this Globular off quite nicely.

Celestial Lollypop

M3
Sketch and Details by Jeff Young

While I suppose the bent stem looks more like a flower, M3 has always struck me as a fuzzy lollypop. However, I’ve attempted to render it as accurately as possible, without colouring the image with any impressions I might have gleaned, so that you can form your own, unique impressions.

M3 (NGC5272); globular cluster in Canes Venatici
sketched 4/31/2008 in County Louth, Ireland
as viewed through 16” Mak-Cass @ 150X; Pickering 8, NELM 5.5, SQM 20.6

My globular sketching technique is a bit different from that I use on other DSOs. I first place as many brighter stars as I can stomach using a medium-soft (HB) pencil. This sketch has about 120 placed stars, most of them in the globular itself. I then lightly smudge the image with a blending stick to show the extent of un-resolved stars. Finally, I place a harder pencil (3H) vertically on the drawing and rotate it slightly to form each of the smaller stars. These are placed randomly to reproduce the levels of shading I see in the eyepiece.

The sketch is then scanned into Photoshop and inverted.