I thought this is a good place to give a head's up on the article I wrote on DSO sketching, using an innovative technique developed by a fellow Aussie astro illustrator Scott Mellish:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-614-0-0-1-0.html
It is an extremely useful technique to use on just about all DSO's, galaxies, nebulae, open and globular clusters.
The good thing about this technique is that it doesn't need to be used exclusively at the eyepiece. If the only materials you have at hand happens to be a pencil and sheet of paper, you can do your initial sketch with these, making notes, guide lines, star plotting, etc. Then you can translate these onto black paper with the Mellish Technique in the comfort of a warm, dry room,
. It can be confusing to have and use all the tools listed in the Basic Kit in the dark, so just a simple pencil and paper approach may be a good first step.
This is the approach I used with my sketch of NGC 2818 & 2818A. My Basic Kit wasn't at hand for me to use, so a pencil and paper was used to do the 'at the eyepiece' first sketch. Sometimes we just need to adapt.
