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Old 01-05-2011, 10:55 PM
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mental4astro (Alexander)
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mental4astro is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: sydney, australia
Posts: 4,979
NGC 3532 - The Wishing Well cluster.

I managed a short session tonight, after not being able to get to my regular dark site last night due to cloud. Tonights conditions from home were not great, with high whispy cloud causing annoyance.

NGC 3532 is a fantastic bright open cluster. It is a naked eye object, even from my home, sitting just East of Eta Carina (also a naked eye object), and often mistaken for it when looking through a finder scope.

It is a massive cluster, with a size of close to 60' - twice that of the Moon! It is a cluster that is best seen in a pair of binoculars or a rich field scope.

For once I added a ring, marking the FOV. This was done after the sketch was laid down. I added it to give a sense of the size of this bugger as the AFOV with the eyepiece I used is close to 2.5deg!

I also used my new 'sketching dew hutch'. Good thing I did as everything was soaked after the 45minutes the sketch took, yet the paper remained nice and dry, .

Cheers,

Mental.

Object: NGC 3532
Scope: 8", f/4
Gear: GSO Superview 30mm (68deg), 27X
Date: 1st May 2011
Location: Sydney
Conditions: poor, high cloud and very dewy
Materials: White charcoal pencil, white and coloured ink on black paper
_____

Edit:

There were some words that astroron had said while the debate about having a sketch forum created. It went along the lines of:

"frankly honest Most do not impress me that much".

These words have been ringing in my ears about this sketch. It was flat and unexciting. It lacked the PUNCH of the eyepeice experience.

I reworked it a little, adding diffraction spikes to the brighter stars. To me it now seems to have a bit more of a kick. What do you think?

Ron, thanks for the words too. It got me thinking on how to sex up these otherwise flat open cluster sketches,
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Last edited by mental4astro; 02-05-2011 at 08:03 AM.
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