Solar sketch

[skyoyster]

Set up the PST for our last day in the Grampians on the double plate bought for my (new!) Losmandy GM8. Had a good look a few times, and did this sketch at about 2pm. I combined the view from a couple of different 'tunings' to get a bit more detail about the sunspots - and when I tuned it back to where the prominences were visible, there was a brand new one on the righthand limb! It was very exciting :D

[lesbehrens]

thats cool. thats what i like about solar observation. it's always changing.

[mental4astro]

How cool is that to have things change so quickly before your eyes!

Nice sketch too, Alexandra.

Have you thought of trying to sketch on black paper with coloured pencils? Just a suggestion. Then you can focus on just a section if you like, much like working on a lone lunar crater, only on a solar feature.

I'm still to have a squiz through a dedicated solar scope. Must be magic!

Mental.

[skyoyster]

Hey Mental - yes, I've considered the dark paper/pencils option, but I figured I'd get a bit more practice in first! I am nearly at the point of getting frustrated about not being able to show plages etc, so that's probably a good sign both of getting my eye in and slowly getting better at the sketching proper. And if you can get a squizz through a PST (or MaxScope, if you have really crazy solar friends!) it's brilliant - although you might come away with a burning desire to own one, which is what happened to me... (5 min at IISAC last year!)

Les, I don't think I'd ever noticed it change so quickly before; it was awesome!

[Paddy]

Nice sketch Alexandra. The first thing I noticed when I did a few solar sketches was that the sun spots that I'd started sketching were quite different by the time I'd finished. The beauty of solar observing is the changeability and the beauty of sketching is the close observation. A great combination.

[Rodstar]

I didn't know Sol had stripes!! (dad joke).

Nice effort, Alexandra. I look forward to seeing your progress with sketching. Have you done any night sketching? I have tried it a bit from time to time, but without tracking on my SDM, it is difficult.

[skyoyster]

Wow, that really was a dad joke... :D

I've not done any night sketching - that's James' department - there's little that inspires me there! That is, there is little in the night sky that I think I could adequately sketch, so I don't bother thinking about it... although the amazing view of Jupiter we got a week or so ago gave me the first urge to try drawing it.