Ok, so here is my Jewel Box from my backyard.
What's most interesting is what I couldn't see.
No moon, so it's just the light polution blocking the view.
Nice job with the Jewel Box, Michael. I like the colouration too. The vivid red and blue. Quite striking.
The Jewel box is such a lovely OC in any scope, and at any magnification. Though it's surrounded by so many stars, its richness and distinct wedge-shape makes it stand out so prominently.
This last new moon I managed to pin onto paper the fabulous Swan Nebula, M17. After my previous new Moon’s view of it, I’ve been chaffing at the bit to get back to it. It is just so detailed, expansive, and subtle in features.
Most striking is the particularly dark hollow that is surrounded by the ‘neck’ of the Swan. It is so much darker than the surrounding space. Here is a tell-tale-sign of not only a dark pillar obstructing the light from the nebula, but that there is so much background light that comes from the background, invisible stars in this section of the Milky Way, that this dark pillar is just SO BLACK.
My previous look at the Swan had me see for the first time the highly textured nature of the ‘bird’s body’. This time, with the added time spent on looking at it, I noticed so much more extensive nebulosity that radiates out from the obvious avian shape. These extensions themselves are so very detailed.
As my big dob is of the good old push-pull type, the constant manual moving of the scope had my eye picking up this faint network of faint smokiness, that a ‘static’ image from a driven scope may not have allowed to be viewed so easily. Such as the heightened darkness immediately above and below the bird’s back and body, only to have more nebulosity sit above and below it, and even behind it. The effect was akin to a swan emerging from out of a soft bank of fog, and the bird’s movement through it causing a delicate disruption to the fog. Just beautiful.
This was a real challenge to sketch. So much of the object is so faint, needing averted vision to make it out. The mottled texture of the bird’s plumage was extraordinarily difficult to make out and lay down faithfully. So much of this is all averted vision work.
By far my most satisfying sketch to date. I hope you enjoy it too.
Object: M17, the Swan Nebula
Scope: 17.5”, f/4.5, push-pull dob.
Gear: 13mm Ethos (thanks Jim!), + OIII filter, 154X
Date: 30th July, 2011
Location: Mount Blackheath Lookout, NSW, Australia
Materials: White soft pastels & charcoal pencil on A4 size black paper, done over 3hrs.
Awesome sketch Alex and a very nice description too.
I had the privilege of looking at this beauty through an 18" scope with Ethos EP on Saturday night (thanks Alan) and it was just amazing. I was blown away by the amount of nebulosity and subtle detail surrounding the swan. I can see why you guys like it so much.
"Putrid seeing", alright. But it's still good to get out under the stars.
Nice work with M57, considering conditions. You've laid down some very nice and delicate detail there Sab. Good control of the pencil to have such a soft touch. I really like the variation in density through the main ring shape.
Do you use a blending stick or is it just the pencil tip? The shading is very finely done.
thanks Alex. seeing was in the pits, the nebula was actually swimming like a flag in a breeze. Didnt get anywhere near the magnification I hoped for. Just use a pencil tip, in this case a 2B (whatever is lying around the house!) But yeah a good view with nice contrast, happy with that. I was once able to use 260x or so with a 12" in great seeing, that was a nice view.
A couple of sketches from last week. Open clusters NGC6067 & 6087 in Norma. I wanted to redo these from a dark site at the weekend but didn't take my cloud blaster with me.
From my backyard NGC6067 appeared to have some slight nebulosity at the center although I don't know if this was due to the higher density of stars some of which I could not resolve.
NGC6087 is much more open and has a hook asterism in the middle.
From tonight, I observed comet 2009 P1 Garrad. I went back to it every hour or so to track its motion through the background stars of Sagitta. The nucleus was clearly brighter than the surrounding coma. I put the overall surface brightness about the same as a nearby star listed as mag 10.65
Last edited by michaellxv; 30-08-2011 at 11:34 PM.
Reason: More detail.
Last night did my first sketch for quite some time - comet Garradd, just near the "Coathanger" in Vulpeca. Worked it over tonight using the Mellish technique - I've had the stuff to do this for a while and haven't tried it til now. It was so much easier than I thought it would be. I also did a version of a sketch I did in March of NGC 3242. I am quite pleased thus far and looking forward to playing with this more.
Wow,
