some sketches

[Paddy]

I've never had much skill at drawing, let alone whilst up a ladder in the dark sketching but a dim red light swinging from a finderscope and juggling my reading glasses at an eyepiece. But at last I've produced some sketches that I thought were vaguely OK. I am in fact quite happy with them, however justifiable that may be. So here are the first sketches I've ever posted.

Two are from the Feb observing challenge and two come from following up Les' article on Antlia in the current AS&T. And I have to say, this is a great bit of sky for galaxies.

The two unlabelled galaxies in the NGC 3269 field are PGC 30939 at about 6 o'clock and PGC 30905 at 2 o'clock.

The only processing has been rubbing with a piece of paper to smooth out the pencil marks and inverting colours.

Thanks for looking and any advice re sketching would be much appreciated.

[Paddy]

Oh dear, they seem very big. Does anyone know how to post them so they are a more reasonable size?

[Rick Parrott]

They are really nice work!

[orestis]

:eyepop:Wow an amazing display of sketches Well done:thumbsup:.They look fantastic.

For posting the image smaller i'd suggest just scaling the image down using a photo editing program.

Regarding the sketching its great but what you might like to do is if you have a photo editing program like photoshop or gimp then i'd suggest trying to make the stars look rounder and maybe a gausian blur to produce that subtle glow from galaxies and show how faint they are.

Great work
Orestis:thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

Very well done !!

[Paddy]

Thanks all for the feedback - much appreciated!



I did download GIMP after our conversation on your sketch post and used it to do the inversion. I tried to use it to fix up the stars, but I've got a bit of learning to do with it. Looks like my scope is very badly collimated the way I've done them. :lol: Need to put the pencil on the paper a bit straighter. I'll look up gausian blur and how to use it. Many thanks for the tips.

[mozzie]

wow paddy great sketches keep it up great stuff:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Blue Skies]

I think they look just fine. They capture the essence of whats in the eyepiece. I haven't seen NGC 2997 for a long time and I don't remember seeing arms like that, so perhaps it time for another look!

[pgc hunter]

great sketches! I find using the pencil leaning close to the paper, hence avoiding using the very tip, works very well for smudging in diffuse objects. I use my finger to smudge the object, this works well for getting rid of pencil lines (make sure you don't make any "hard" pencil marks/lines - use light strokes) and you can use a rubber to get rid of any unwanted smudges that may appear outside of the desired area ( which will happen with the finger smudging technique..use your pinky to minimize this ;) ) - and to refine the shape of the object.

You can get these mouldable "putty" erasers from an art supply shop, which you can mould into any shape and will definately help you create variations of brightness in the object your sketching as you can mould fine tips etc. I haven't used these but really should.

btw, sweet catch those PGCs!

PGC 30939 = ANON 1027-35B
Mag B = 16.0 , SB = 14.1 , Size = 30x26"

PGC 30905 = ESO 375-G041
Mag B = 14.6 , SB = 13.8 , Size = 105x21"

Well done! These would challenge even Rob's Tasco :lol:

[Paddy]

Thanks for the very encouraging responses. And some great tips Sab. I will give them a try. And iwas very happy to see the PGCs and the Night Sky Observer's guide was very helpful in telling me what they were.

I feel like this has added a whole new dimension to my observing, in the way that making notes has done. It's very exciting.

[pgc hunter]

:thumbsup: keep it up. Sketching is also useful as it forces you to sqeeze every last ounce of detail out of the object allowing you to see more than you otherwise would've.