Astronomy Sketch of the Day

Mars - March 6, 2010
Sketch and Details by Charles Galdies

Malta, http://znith-observatory.blogspot.com
6 March 2010
graphite pencil, white paper

After so many nights with bad weather, last evening offered a fair glimpse of the red planet on its distancing away from the earth.

Still, the slight wind and lack of good transparency where not helpful to get to an accurate sketch of what Mars was offering last night. Even though I was using a new 10mm eyepiece which gave me higher magnification, the illumination of the surface disk seemed to have decreased since I last observed the planet almost a month ago.

Most prominent was Niliacus Lacus next to brighter Chryse. The edge of N. Lacus lining Chryse could not be efined so I could not locate its exact termination. Tempe region next to N. Lacus was evident as a lighter region.

The detection of the delicate features of Sinus Meridiani was more challenging last night. Inspite of the poor transparency the detection of S. Meridiani and its adjacent Margaritifer Sinus extending to Oxia Palus was possible. Pyrrhae Regio was not well defined.

Changing to a blue filter did not help much to add significant detail to the above.

Plato, Goldschmidt and Northern Limb
Sketch and Details by Deirdre Kelleghan

February 28th / March 1st 2010 23:20 UT - 00 :35 UT
200 mm Dobsonian Telescope FL 1,200
8mm TVP eyepiece = 150X
Goldschmidt rays and the Moons North limb

South is up in this sketch because that is the way I viewed it and sketched it. Pastels & Conte on black paper.

Our beautiful Snow moon was 99 .9 % drenched in the suns light when I went observing on the last day in February 2010. Along the NW limb several craters were on view in the libration zone, it was my intention to make a sketch of these elusive features. They presented on the limb as dark deep long shadows edged with sharp bright lines against the blackness of space.

However while these were interesting, my eye was magnetized toward the brightness of Goldschmidt and its ejecta rays, giving great form to the area. Several of these long dark lines were also on view on the edge of the limb close to Goldschmidt and Herschel . It was so visually interesting to observe the contrasts on the limb when the moon was so full, a black and white merry dance of slow movement and rich structure.

Plato never looked so dark and flat ,its black floor absorbing the suns light when most of the surrounding area was throwing it toward my eye. I adored the tiny pure white rim sections singing in the light. My sketch wandered across part of Mare Frigoris , the area around Plato and includes part of Mons Teneriffe .

–
Deirdre Kelleghan
Vice Char IFAS
Outreach IFAS
National Coordinator Astronomers Without Borders Ireland .
http://www.irishastronomy.org/
http://www.deirdrekelleghan.com/
https://twitter.com/skysketcher

Sun - H-Alpha - March 4, 2010
Sketch and Details by Erika Rix

2010 March 4
Solar h-alpha, Active regions 1051, 1052, 1053
PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA - 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.

Temp: -1°C, Humidity 75%
Seeing: Wilson 4, Transparency: 4.6/6
Light cirrus, calm, Alt: 35.1, Az: 140.0

NGC 4725 - Barred Spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices
Sketch and Details by János Gábor Kernya

Date: 2008. 04. 27/28.
UT.: 20h56m – 21h52m
Equipment: 305/1525 Dobsonian reflector
Mag.: 122x
FOV: 25’
S = 7 / 10
T = 4-5 / 5

Rotating Sketch of Mars 2010
Sketch and Details by Frédéric Burgeot
3D Mapping and Video by Pascal Chauvet

Hi,

Here is a “movie” of Mars in motion. I made a planisphere from a dozen of my sketches of the red planet, and my friend Pascal Chauvet has made a movie with my planisphere. The sketches have been made in France, from December to February, with a 16” Newtonian, 350X of magnification with a binoviewer.

Best regards,
Fred Burgeot.

Flat version of Mars Sketch
By Frédéric Burgeot

Sun - February 26, 2010
Sketch and Details by Stephen Ames

I use:
Crayola Cerulean pencil for plage
Crayola Aqua Green pencil for proms
White 20# paper
I scan into photoshop and invert.

Blue skies,

Stephen Ames
www.SeeMySunspot.com

Mars - February 5, 2010
Sketch and Details by Aleksander Cieśla

Hello!
I would like to present my latest sketch of the planet Mars.

Object: Mars
Date: February 5th, 2010
Place: Poland, Wrocław
Equipment: Schmidt-Cassegrain 5″ with Antares SW 7,4mm
Filters: Moon & Skyglow, #12, #21, #80A, #25, #58 colour filters
Seeing: 3/5
Transparency: 1,5/5
Weather: Light fog, stable air.
Technique: Graphite pencil and GIMP2 tooling.
Oserver: Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

Messier 42 and 43
Sketch and Details by Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

Despite I was observing from a small town, the lights affected a little the result. When I do it far from downtown, on a farm, I’m able to see something better. I’ll sketch another one - from the farm - as soon as I can. I hope you enjoy this, it’s my first sketch. The atmosphere conditions were good.

Special thanks to Rodrigo Testa and Ricardo, who helped me a lot with the telescope.

Telescope: 180mm reflector dob. f/6, ATM S. S. Filho

Mars - February 18, 2010
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

Conditions were much improved over those of last Thursday for observing and sketching the planet Mars. The air column above me was mostly steady with temperatures just a degree above freezing.
Mars is now growing smaller in the eyepiece at 13.0″ of arc and 0.72 A.U. from us. 98% of the disk is illuminated and shining at visual magnitude -0.9. The central meridian of Mars was centered around 269° at the time of the sketch.
The north polar cap is clearly diminishing in size and visual brightness. In addition to the major features such as: Syrtis Major, Hellas, Mare Australe, Utopia/Casius, Mare Cimmerium and Mare Tyrrhenum; I was able to see clouds over the Elysium volcanic field and the albedo feature Nodus Alcyonis also appeared during moments of very steady seeing.
Before beginning this sketch I spent 30 minutes looking at Mars through red, green and light blue filters to assist with locating low contrast features.

Sketching:
The eyepiece sketch is the one on top in graphite pencil. The second color sketch was made indoors.
White sketching paper 8″ x 11″; HB graphite pencil, blending stumps for blending orange, brown and yellow Crayola pencil shavings.
Date 2/19/2010 – Time 3:00-3:35 UT
Telescope: 13.1 inch f/5.9 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 218x
Temperature: 1°C (34°F)
clear, calm
Transparency 4/5
Seeing: Antoniadi III

Frank McCabe

The Deer Lick Group
Sketch and Details by Miłosz Guzowski

Hi,
today I want to present my sketch of Deer Lick - galaxy grup from Pegasus.
Object name: NGC 7331 (Deer Lick group)
Object type: Galaxy cluster
Location: Białuty (Poland)
Date: 18/19.08.2009
Scope: 10″ newtonian + ploosl 10mm (mag. 120x)

Medium : Graphite/blending stump on white paper + GIMP processing

Mars - January 30, 2010
Sketch and Details by Serge Vieillard

Just after the opposition of 2010, opportunity to draw the planet finally arrives. It is necessary to compromise with a cloud covered sky these last months and a lack of certain spirit. It is necessary to force ones self to use the rare opportunities, the cold being particularly lively this year. But I decided not to let this nice night of ice on January 30th get away. When I took out the T250 (10”) and installed it on the equatorial plate the show began. The planet rides high up in the sky but the atmosphere is a bit turbulent. I contented myself to use 300x with an orange filter from time to time. Others magnifications of 500x were welcome for this tiny planetary disc of a little more than 14″ of arc.

Translation by Frank McCabe

Alessi J03091+2420
Sketch and Details by Tóth János

Dier ASOD!
My new sketch:

Alessi J03091+2420
Open cluster in Aries (03 09 03+24 20 52)
Kisújszállás (Hungary)
2010. 02. 01.
6″ Newt dob
seeing: 4/10
transparency: 6/10
Temperature: -12 Co

AGCS 1014
Sketch and Details by Scott Mellish

AGCS 1014
Galaxy cluster
Octans
13/12/09
Ilford NSW Australia
56cm f5.0 Dobsonian telescope
Field: 15′
Magnification: 314x
Sky Quality Meter reading 21:72

White pen
White oil pencil
Soft white pencil

The far southern circumpolar constellation of Octans is not often considered rich in deep sky objects, at least not bright and pretty ones.

For the more adventurous observer there is a wealth of faint and fascinating galaxies scattered throughout the area to keep one engrossed for hours.

One such object is the remote Abell galaxy cluster AGCS 1014.
R.A: 22 23 47.9 DEC: -80 11 52.
This object is the most interesting of several extremely faint galaxy clusters that inhabit the region, and certainly the brightest one that is nearest the south celestial pole.

What is most rewarding with such little known objects is the fact that the observer may very well be one of only a handful of people on the planet to have seen it in a telescope.

Scott Mellish.

Mars - January 19, 2010
Sketch and Details by Christian Gros

Au T180 avec des grossissements de x270 à x308. Mars me paraissait plus jaune qu’orange ! Sur le côté j’ai pu voir la présence de nuages qui donnaient cette aspect beaucoup plus clair !

Christian Gros

Google Translation:

At T180 with magnifications of x270 to x308. Mars seemed more yellow orange! On the side I could see the presence of clouds that gave this aspect a lot clearer!

Christian Gros

Rim of Mare Nectaris,
with craters Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina, and Rupes Altai
Sketch and Details by Peter Mayhew
Hover mouse over image to view labels.

The sketch was made with graphite pencil on white paper at the eyepiece. My instrument is a Skywatcher Skyliner 152mm f8 Dobsonian, and I used a 10mm eyepiece and x2 Barlow. The moon was day 19-20. The sketch took about one hour, during which time I had to reposition the scope about 100 times as the earth’s rotation took the target out of view. The famous trio of craters, Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina lie on the edge of the Nectaris impact basin. Theophilus is the youngest crater of the three, an estimated billion years old with a large central peak with multiple summits, 1500m high. It has an impressive terraced rim. Cyrillus is much older (3.5-3.8 billion), and retains a central peak too, unlike Catharina to its north. To give a sense of scale the latter is 104km across. The landscape all around is dominated by the Rupes Altai, a scarp 1000m high and 500km long. This marks the ripples in the crust formed by the Nectaris impact. Mons Penck (4000m high) forms part of its northern extent. Low ridges and hills throughout the region are aligned with the impact, nearly 4 billion years ago. Three fruity craters and a fascinating reminder of the moon’s dramatic past.

Mars Map
Sketch and Details by Fred Corno

Date: blend of 34 observations from 2003, 2005 and 2007
Telescopes used: Vixen VMC 200L and Taka FS 128

The attached map represents the blend of 34 observations collected over 4 years. In order to correctly position features depicted in the various sketches made during the observations, reference coordinates grids were made and superimposed to the original drawing, then features were reported on a Lambert projection grid of the whole planet according to reference coordinates.
Original sketches were made marking on a 54 mm blank circular shape color density areas at the eyepiece, then refining with graphite pencil and colored pastels, after the observing session, and blending tones with an artist stump.
Present drawing was made with colored pastels.

Best regards

Fred

Messier 57
Sketch and Details by Tomás Ruiz Lara

I’m a lovely fan of the trilogy “The Lord of The Rings”, written by J.R.R. Tolkien. When I’m observing this nebula I always remember Gandalf and his pipe. This is a precious nebula, my favourite planetary nebula, easy to locate, easy to observe and lovely. This Sketch was done with a common pencil and with cotton to sketch the nebula and the stars was created with the program Gimp 2.6.7.
Equipment used, 260 mm newtonian reflector f/6 with a 21 mm eyepiece and a 2x Barlow (Barlow 2x Vixen Deluxe) (149x).
Seeing: 2/5
Phase of the Moon: Crescent but not visible.

Mars - February 10, 2010
Sketch and Details by Andrew Watkinson-Trim

Pencil sketch at eyepiece with text added later. This is my first attempt at drawing Mars and also “first light” for my Skywatcher 127mm Mak’. The improvement on my old 102 SLT Celestron reflector was very marked. The seeing was reasonable, but the manual Alt/Az mount necessitated frequent repositioning of the object. This is an example of a “snatched” observing session showing that something worthwhile can be achieved in 10 minutes without dark-adaptation. I was delighted to be able to confirm the accuracy of this drawing because a friend was imaging Mars with his 8 inch Newtonian at the same time.

AWT

Messier 5
Sketch and Details by Michael Geldorp

From: geldorpmh@hotmail.com
To: webmaster@asod.info
Subject: ASOD: “Messier 5”–”Michael Geldorp”.
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:04:06 -0700

Submission for ASOD:

Object Name (Messier 5 (NGC 5904))
Object Type (Globular Cluster)
Location (Alphen a/d Rijn, Netherlands)
Date (6/25/1998)

This sketch was made using an 8″ Dobsonian (F/6) at 244X magnification under fairly clear skies. I used pencils of various hardness on quality printer paper. The sketch was then scanned into the computer and inverted white-on-black.

My notes for that night read:
“49X: Easily found. Few stars resolved at this power with one star very obvious in the center.
98X: Partially resolved with a grainy core.
203X: Blazing ball of diamond like stars with a bright star to the SSW.
244X: Fully resolved at 244X. Beautiful sight! Stars are seen right across the cluster including in the core. Large round bright center. Stars appear to form arms radiating outward from the center, almost forming circles around the cluster.”

It was the first sketch (first night out in fact) made using the 8″ Dobsonian telescope.

For more information and other sketches please visit http://milou.blackapplehost.com/Astrohomepage/htmlfiles/index2.html

Michael Geldorp

NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory Launch
Sketch and Details by Stephen Ramsden

I know that this is a bit off the wall, but I got so inspired by the SDO going up safely that I decided to sketch it. Hope you like it.
_________________________________________________________________

NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory

Atlas V rocket

Cape Kennedy Space Center, FL USA

Feb 11th, 2010

This is colored Conte oil crayons, #2 pencils and a napkin for smudging on black Artagain recycled sketch paper. This sketch was my impression of several frames from the NASA launch video.

I was very thrilled when the SDO launched successfully. I cannot wait until data starts streaming into Goddard Space Flight Center from this, the first mission in NASA’s living with a star program. Great timing too as we have seen such a dramatic uptick in Solar activity the last few weeks.

Stephen W. Ramsden
Atlanta, GA
www.solarastrophotography.com