Pastels on Black Paper – Page 2 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

A little fat Owl

It had been a while since I did a lunar sketch. May saw me complete my first lunar sketch in many months. I made several attempts, but on those occasions, seeing was so poor the Moon was ‘boiling’ using just 100X magnification. Disappointing and frustrating. Eventually things did change in my favour…

As always, unless I have a specific target in mind, I just let my eye wonder along the terminator to see what pricks my interest. And, as there are several repeated alphanumeric apparitions on the Moon, I’ve found a second avian one! Some time ago I spotted an owl formed around the crater Mercator. Last night I found a second Owl, this time around the flooded craters Fra Mauro (the fat body), Parry (the right eye), and Bonpland (the left eye).Cute little fella I think is formed here J.

As it turns out, Fra Mauro is just to the south of the Apollo 14 landing site – south is to the top of the page, so the Apollo 14 site lies just below where the Owl’s feet would be.

Object: “Little Fat Owl”, craters Fra Mauro, Parry and Bonpland
Scope: C8, 8” SCT
Gear: 5mm Baader Hyperion, 400X
Date: 8th May, 2014
Location: Sydney, Australia
Media: White & grey soft pastel, charcoal and white ink on A5 size black paper
Duration: approx. 2hrs.

M78, A profile of tropical fish

Hi everyone!

I observed M78 &34 in Nov. midnight with my 15″ Dob.

While I drew M78, I reminded of tropical fish, it’s side face 🙂

The nebulousity of NGC 2071 is shine dimly.

Where does this tropical fish came from?

Deep cosmos? Deep see? or My eyes? 🙂

Object Name : M78
Object Type : Reflection Nebula
Location : S. Korea
Date : Nov. 11, 2013
Media : Black paper, Jelly pen, Pastel pencel

Light vs dark – The Jewel Box and The Coal Sack

The Jewel Box star cluster (NGC 4755) and the Coal Sack dark nebula

Hello all,

A couple of weekends ago saw Ice In Space Astro Camp ’14 happen at Lostock in rural NSW, Australia. I arrived late on the Friday, and when I finally settled at the camp it was dark and I just didn’t feel like setting up a big scope. The sky was clear, the full brilliance of the Milky Way was arcing overhead, so it was a great chance for some wide field sketching with my little 4″ achro.

Some time ago I had made a mental note of a potential sketching target as being the area around the lovely cluster The Jewel Box in the Southern Cross. The great thing about this scope and eyepiece combination is the true field of view encompasses the Jewel Box, Mimosa or Beta Cruxius, and the western edge of the dark nebula The Coal Sack, all set off against the mottled background Milky Way. Gorgeous stuff!

The Coal Sack is also surprisingly detailed. Streamers of darker lines, patches of brighter, and ghostly arcs. These details made for a great challenge as they are, well, black… Another fainter open cluster can also be seen just to the upper right of the Jewel Box. The Southern Cross contains dozens of open clusters within its boarder.

This sketch is very close to showing the full 5deg True Field of View I had.

Object: Jewel Box and the Coal Sack.
Scope: 4″ f/5 achromatic refractor
Gear: 30mm 82deg Explore Scientific, 17X, 5deg TFOV.
Location: Lostock, NSW, Oz
Date: 25th April, 2014
Media: White soft pastel, charcoal and white ink on A4 size black paper.
Duration: approx. 2hrs

M53 Globular Cluster

Object Name: M 53 (NGC 5024)
Location: RA: 13h 12m 55.2s; Dec: +18° 10′ 08″
Magnitude: 7.7
Dimensions: 13′
Constellation: Coma Berenice
Type: Globular Cluster
Description: GC, B, vC, iR, vvmbM, star 12.
Location: Viso del Marqués. Ciudad Real. SPAIN
Date: May 3, 2014.
Time: 00:15 UT.
Material used: pastel pencils on black paper.
Celestron Telescope S / C 8 “Mount Cgt-5
Eyepiece: ES 14mm 100º;
Magnification: 145x.
Condition: NEML: 5’6 (Zone 11 Bootes).

More information: http://astrodibujo.blogspot.com.es/

Lunar Hide and Seek – Occultation and Lunar Eclipse

The Lunar Eclipse and occultation of April 15, 2014

Aloha!

Tonight after setting up with friends and being thwarted by clouds, I raced home to see if I could still observe part of the lunar eclipse from a different location. Upon arriving home I found it was clear and quickly set up my 15×70 binoculars. I was delighted to see h Virginis just peeking its bright head out from behind the limb of the Moon and quickly started a sketch of my observation. The umbra had almost made it over the last portion of the limb and the remaining edge was brightly lit. The Moon took on a coppery glow and the stars shone nearby that normally cant be observed during full Moon.

15×70 Binocular on tripod

Black Stathmore paper, colored pencils & pastels

Thia (Cindy) Krach

Maui, Hawaii

Messier 81 and 82

Date: February 25th, 2012
Location: West Desert, Utah
Time: 07:15 UT and 07:45 UT approx.
Equipment: XX14i, 10mm, 5mm Pentax XW;
Conditions: Antoniadi I
Objects: Messier 81 & 82, Spiral Galaxies in Ursa Major
Sketches done using the Mellish Method with the contrast adjusted in GIMP.

Two of my last several objects of this night were M81 and M82 in Ursa Major. I included them because of the Light Pollution versus Dark Sky comparisons I am wanting to do. Now I just need to the sky to cooperate at home! Nothing but snow that melts the next day and clouds since. M82, Bode’s Galaxy in Ursa Major. Pretty close to spot on how I saw it.

Posidonius and Northern Serpentine Ridge

With the first clear night in more than one week, I was able to catch the sunset across crater Posidonius (99 km) at the northeastern edge of Mare Serentatis. Posidonius A (11 km.) , the highest of the small central peaks and the tilted and uplifted concentric ridge were the last features catching the light at sunset inside the rim. Also visible and included in this sketch was the northern most portion of Serpentine Ridge. As temperatures were falling throughout the night, I found myself stopping to warm my hands indoors not once but several times. The lunar viewing was excellent this night.

Sketching:
For this sketch I used: black Strathmore 400 Artagain paper, white and black Conte’ pastel pencils and a blending stump.

Telescope: 10 inch f/ 5.7 Dobsonian and 9 mm eyepiece 161X
Date: 01-02-2013: 04:30 – 06:00 UT
Temperature: – 16° C (2° F)
Clear, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi III
Colongitude: 150°
Lunation: 19.83 days
Illumination: 79.6%

Frank McCabe

Messier 77 (Cetus A)

M77 / NGC1068 / Cetus A
Constellation – Cetus
Spiral galaxy
Distance – 47MLy
Mag 8.9

Date – 10/12/12
Seeing – Antoniadi III
Transparency – Poor
SQM 21.45 (LM 6.3)
Location – Hartland Point UK
Media – White pastels on black paper.

Telescope – 16″ f/4.5
EP – 8mm Delos x236 TFoV 0.18˚

Sketch notes

Very small galaxy that improved with lots of magnification. Bright core makes it an easy find even with low mag EP’s.

High level cloud made the transparency poor making it very difficult to see any detail but I could just make out a couple spiral arms inside the halo of the galaxy.

Very nice object and will go back to under better conditions.

Monster Prominence

Object Name: Prominence
Object Type: Large plasma eruption on the solar surface
Location: Deventer, The Netherlands
Date: July 27, 2012
Media: White pastel pencil on black paper

This morning I aimed my 70mm solar telescope at the sun and I almost got blown away by what I saw. I GIANT prominence on the north eastern limb. I hovered above the surface like a huge dragon. I made a sketch with white pastels on black paper, color added and orientation-flip with Photoshop.

Clear skies!

Roel Weijenberg,
Deventer, The Netherlands
www.roelblog.nl

A Conjunction with Some History

Conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran

At the last day of October I sketched a beautiful conjunction between the Moon, Jupiter and Aldebaran. The building in the foreground was my holiday-resort (illuminated by a streetlight), a renovated farm from 1669. By chance: in the first months of 1669 Jupiter was also next to Aldebaran in the sky. So the first inhabitants could have witnessed a similar conjunction. To add some more history: the location was less than 10 km from Middelburg, the town where the telescope was invented!

Clear skies

Jef De Wit

Location: Biggekerke, Netherlands (51°29’ N 3°31’ E)
Date and time: 31 October 2012 around 19.30 UT
Equipment: naked eye
Medium: pastel pencils and soft pastels on black paper (A4), Jupiter and Aldebaran were brightened with Paint