observation report + sketch 29/12/09

[orestis]

Hi everyone:hi:,
After a whole week of waiting for a beautifull night,It finally came and on my birthday aswell:P,When i turned 14.Best Birthday present i could ever have:lol:.

Telescope-130mmX900mm Reflector
Sky conditions- 4/5 very good
Moon phase- Waxing Gibbous, approx 90 percent full
obs night started - about 8.30pm edst
obs night finished- about 10.15pm edst

When i took the telescope out it was still a bit bright so i looked at the moon.

Vallis scroter/Aristarchus/herodotus:-First time i've seen this group.I saw amazing detail in the valley and the two craters.There was two craters side by side and then the valley coming out of the middle of them an amaing sight:D.10mm + 2x barlow.

Then when it started getting dark i had a glimpse at m42 at noticed a very apparent green hue which i hadn't noticed before.must of been the transperency.

After that i swung the scope around to ngc 2516 (open cluster in carina)
and started sketching.

NGC 2516:-i could see 80 or more stars in the fov.The distribution of the stars was quite irregular ,some grouped areas while there were also big bald patches were no stars could be seen.The central star had a red hue to it and the brightest to the right was yellow.Magnificent open cluster.

After i finished the sketch i had a look at Sirius the dog star.Wow it was the first time i've seen difraction spikes in my scope,it was awesome.

Sketch info:-all i basically did was just plot the stars and then processed on computer.materials-2b clutch pencil.sketch took about an hour to make (beginner).I only have one problem i don't know how to put down the cardinal points on.Does anyone here know how too?

i was going to look for ngc 2808 (glob in carina) but it was too bright from the moon so i went to bed feeling satisfied with my sketch.

Thank you to anyone patient enogh to read my obs report and look at my sketch.

orestis:thumbsup:
clear skies to all

[Rob_K]

Wow, that is an impressive report - and happy birthday Orestis! :thumbsup: Great job on the sketch - don't really know if there's a 'convention' for putting cardinal points on, but a small radial N arrow from the outside of the circle should suffice. Maybe someone else could advise.

Keep up the good work! :)

Cheers -

[orestis]

:thumbsup:Thanks Rob for the kind comments .i'm glad you liked it.;)
I know that you put the arrows on the outside of the circle to show cardinal directions but i don't know how to figure out were north is.
I think north is up and east the left for this sketch ,not sure:shrug:.

orestis:thumbsup:

[pgc hunter]

Good stuff and a great sketch too! Always great to see obs reports here :) I find clusters take alot of time to sketch, as you have to accurately position what seem like hundreds of stars! ;)

Finding direction when looking into the eyepiece can be a bit tricky, but one easy way to work out west is that it's the direction the object is drifting through in the eyepiece as the Earth turns. Finding north on the other hand isnt so easy. One way I do it is move the telescope north - any "new" sky entering the Field of view will be from the north. However this only works for objects near the meridian.

Also you can look up DSS images of the object you've viewed - these have north up, so you can match the orientation of stars in your sketch to the image, then you'll find which way north is.

[barx1963]

Well done with sketching and all. I observed 2516 a couple of weeks ago (see http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=54289 for my report)
Lovely object, easily seen with naked eye once you get dark skies.
Good luck with the scope. Same as my first scope which I still sometimes use.

[orestis]

Thanks for the comments guys,

Pgc hunter-Thanks a lot for the info .The drifting idea sounds great.
I used dss image and found were north is:D.its towards the bottom right of the sketch.Yeah its hard work plotting all those stars.

Malcolm-Nice Observation of ngc 2516:thumbsup:.I could actually just see it naked eye yesterday and it was nearly full moon:eyepop:.Yes i'm having fun with the scope.

orestis:thumbsup:

[Paddy]

Great report Orestis. And I salute your patience in producing such a meticulous sketch - what a great way to really observe. I look forward to more.

[orestis]

Thanks paddy:thumbsup:
For the comments.And more you shall get if these clouds clear up.

I downloaded gimp and edited my pic with it, i think it looks a lot better than the first .What do you think?

Orestis;)

[Paddy]

It looks good - I like the way you can add colour to the stars. But what is gimp?

[HSK]

Gimp is almost like photoshop but free ware. It's good. I use them.

Tom

P.S. Nice report!

[ngcles]

Hi Orestis,

Your report took no patience at all to read mate.

In particular loved your report on the Schroter's Valley and Aristarchus Herodotus region on the Moon. It is probably my favourite lunar object and at the correct angle of illumination it is probably the most 3-D looking thing on the Moon.

Good sketch and it would be helpful to others to note the directions on the sketch. Good advice there from the PGC boy ...

With sketching, I use a little cheat to get things in the correct perspective, proportions and orientation.

With my plaetarium software (Megastar) I can create a chart with a circle overlay showing the exact size of my eyepiece field in the 'scope I'm using, superimposed over the field I'm looking at.

I print that chart and then place the drawing sheet over the chart and trace over that eyepiece field circle and also mark the brightest, say five stars on the paper distributed around the field to use as a "frame" for the actual sketch.

Then take away the chart and do the sketch. It helps me (an absolutely hopeless sketch-artist) make sure the whole thing is in proper proportion and that parts of the cluster aren't stretched or compressed as you run-out of or have fill-in parts a little more compressed than they really are. You can do the same thing drawing any eyepiece object and it helps make sure your're galaxies and nebulae are just the right size.


Best,

Les D