[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Sil, that site is fine if you are imaging, not if you are looking through a scope and expecting to see a "Hubble" like image through the eyepiece.

I think you've missed the point of this thread. The sketches that are posted by me or others don't always show a scale - the sketcher isn't always interested in the scale, but more interested in as an accurate representation of what they see. For me, scale is more of a hinderance than an asset, so I rarely use a "scale" or draw a FOV circle, but the sketches I produce are as visually as accrate as I can make them.

Another reason why scale can be irrelivant is with the very thing you mention - planets. I'll be the first to acknowledge the small size of the planets through a scope. But if that is all you are interested in, then visually you underestimate the accutity of your eyes.

This thread, and the sketching stickies, are not an exercise in imaging as there is no comparison between the two disciplines. I've not implied that either. What I've always maintained is that the sketches are a direct representation of what a keen eye can see through the eyepiece. I could draw the same analogy that imaging is a misrepresentation of objects in the sky, as they show colour, extensions, faintness of detail, etc, that we cannot see through the scope - even scale is misleading as the final presented image is cropped. I don't as imaging is its own niche. Please don't confuse the two.