Sidewinder
31-12-2006, 07:57 AM
Hello fellow astronomers!
I hope you had a great holiday, down there in summery Australia!
Over the last weeks, I have gone quite amiss, there was a lot of work to do and the sky was overcast most of the time anyways. But just before Christmas, the weather showed its best side and the skies cleared up, providing very good observing conditions around 6m0, from one of my observing sites in Bavaria, located at a height of about 800 meters.
I decided to do some sketching with my Vixen 4.5" Newtonian on a Vixen GP equatorial mount - just to prove, what a small opening can provide for deep sky observing.
The five sketches I want to present today are only a part of what I had really drawn, still, it is a lot of work to re-process the sketches digitally, thus I haven't gotten around to re-work them all. So stay tuned to some more drawings in the future.
Sketch Number One "µ Cephei": This is a drawing I had already done back in November, the only drawing of that awful month. It's µ Cephei, a variable star in the constellation of Cepheus and reportedly one of the "reddest" stars that can be observed with the naked eye. A telescope intensifies the apparent colour. It's a Red Giant with a period of approximately 730 days.
Sketch Number Two "Messier 1": This is a well-known object, the Crab Nebula in the constellation of Taurus, one of the favourite winter objects here in Middle Europe. Being very sensitive to light pollution, a little flame is clearly visible under good conditions, even though no apparent detail can be observed, even with bigger apertures. The object is the remains of a supernova, which occurred there in 1054, thus making it one of the youngest objects visible with the telescope. For me personally filters provide not much use, because it is mostly synchrotron radiation, which is emitted by the nebula.
Sketch Number Three "NGC 2392": Fitting for the holiday season, an Eskimo makes its way across Europe's frosty nightskies. It's a planetary nebula, which offers the view of an Eskimo head on photographic long-time exposures. This cannot be seen with the 4.5" Newtonian, however, a triple division is clearly visible: there is a very bright, almost stellar central core, surrounded by two halos, one brighter and one fainter. A very nice sketching object, even for small apertures.
Sketch Number Four "M 78": M 78 is an easy to find reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion. Clearly visible in the 4.5" Newtonian are two "central stars" and a diffuse nebula, which spreads out into south-east direction. This is giving the nebula an almost cometary appearance, making it an interesting object for observation. Even though it is very bright, still a lot of averted vision and concentration had to be applied, to work out at least some details.
Sketch Number Five "NGC2903": This is a pretty bright galaxy in the constellation of Leo, clearly visible in a small telescope. The galaxy itself does not reveal a lot of detail, there is a relatively bright, but not stellar core, which is surrounded by a diffuse milky halo, spreading out from north-east to south-west direction. The galaxy is surrounded by a few stars, which can be helpful for focusing. Another galaxy for small apertures, which can easily make a stand against many Messier objects.
I hope you enjoyed viewing the drawings and read the little notes. Even though I own and have access to bigger-sized telescopes, I always like to bring out the 4.5" every once in a while. The biggest advantage of this little telescope is that it is pretty light, thus pretty mobile and easily set up on it's equatorial mount. When I bought it, I was lucky and got one with excellent optics - in the hands of the concentrated and motivated observer, it can be a real deep sky weapon.
I just want to encourage people with small apertures to go beyond the moon and planets and try to push a little further into space - actually, NGC 2903 is about 25 million light years away, still an easy catch for the 4.5".
Have a happy new year!
Sebastian
I hope you had a great holiday, down there in summery Australia!
Over the last weeks, I have gone quite amiss, there was a lot of work to do and the sky was overcast most of the time anyways. But just before Christmas, the weather showed its best side and the skies cleared up, providing very good observing conditions around 6m0, from one of my observing sites in Bavaria, located at a height of about 800 meters.
I decided to do some sketching with my Vixen 4.5" Newtonian on a Vixen GP equatorial mount - just to prove, what a small opening can provide for deep sky observing.
The five sketches I want to present today are only a part of what I had really drawn, still, it is a lot of work to re-process the sketches digitally, thus I haven't gotten around to re-work them all. So stay tuned to some more drawings in the future.
Sketch Number One "µ Cephei": This is a drawing I had already done back in November, the only drawing of that awful month. It's µ Cephei, a variable star in the constellation of Cepheus and reportedly one of the "reddest" stars that can be observed with the naked eye. A telescope intensifies the apparent colour. It's a Red Giant with a period of approximately 730 days.
Sketch Number Two "Messier 1": This is a well-known object, the Crab Nebula in the constellation of Taurus, one of the favourite winter objects here in Middle Europe. Being very sensitive to light pollution, a little flame is clearly visible under good conditions, even though no apparent detail can be observed, even with bigger apertures. The object is the remains of a supernova, which occurred there in 1054, thus making it one of the youngest objects visible with the telescope. For me personally filters provide not much use, because it is mostly synchrotron radiation, which is emitted by the nebula.
Sketch Number Three "NGC 2392": Fitting for the holiday season, an Eskimo makes its way across Europe's frosty nightskies. It's a planetary nebula, which offers the view of an Eskimo head on photographic long-time exposures. This cannot be seen with the 4.5" Newtonian, however, a triple division is clearly visible: there is a very bright, almost stellar central core, surrounded by two halos, one brighter and one fainter. A very nice sketching object, even for small apertures.
Sketch Number Four "M 78": M 78 is an easy to find reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion. Clearly visible in the 4.5" Newtonian are two "central stars" and a diffuse nebula, which spreads out into south-east direction. This is giving the nebula an almost cometary appearance, making it an interesting object for observation. Even though it is very bright, still a lot of averted vision and concentration had to be applied, to work out at least some details.
Sketch Number Five "NGC2903": This is a pretty bright galaxy in the constellation of Leo, clearly visible in a small telescope. The galaxy itself does not reveal a lot of detail, there is a relatively bright, but not stellar core, which is surrounded by a diffuse milky halo, spreading out from north-east to south-west direction. The galaxy is surrounded by a few stars, which can be helpful for focusing. Another galaxy for small apertures, which can easily make a stand against many Messier objects.
I hope you enjoyed viewing the drawings and read the little notes. Even though I own and have access to bigger-sized telescopes, I always like to bring out the 4.5" every once in a while. The biggest advantage of this little telescope is that it is pretty light, thus pretty mobile and easily set up on it's equatorial mount. When I bought it, I was lucky and got one with excellent optics - in the hands of the concentrated and motivated observer, it can be a real deep sky weapon.
I just want to encourage people with small apertures to go beyond the moon and planets and try to push a little further into space - actually, NGC 2903 is about 25 million light years away, still an easy catch for the 4.5".
Have a happy new year!
Sebastian