My first view of Thor's Helmet was back in 2011 during the 2011 IISAC. It was suggested to me to chase it up that night, and it made such an impact I had to sketch it that night too,
Last Saturday night was my second view of it.
A change of circumstances on the morning of January 17 meant I could make a mad dash up to Katoomba Airfield that night. And I feel very, very fortunate to have had that chance. That evening presented the most extraordinary transparency I had seen for several years!
Curious thing though, while you may know it is a brilliant night, just how good it is sometimes does not totally sink in until you revisit an old friend you haven't seen for a long time. In this case it was Thor's Helmet.
You'll find a more extensive write up on this sketch in my blog, listed in my signature below.
By way of comparison, I've included the sketch I did of the Helmet back in 2011. The difference is striking. Same scope, but a 16mm Konig eyepiece for the first sketch. But the quality of the night ultimately made the difference.
Object: Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359
Scope: 17.5" push-pull Karee dob
Gear: 22mm LVW, 91X, OIII filter
Date: 18th January, 2015
Location: Katoomba Airfield, 2015
Media: White soft pastel, charcoal and white ink on A4 size black paper
Duration: approx. 1hr.
Last edited by mental4astro; 24-01-2015 at 09:32 AM.
Reason: typos
Thors helmet was shown to me a few years ago through an 18" and it was a wow moment. I couldn't stay at the EP for an hour so I didn't pick out all the detail you have captured but it was very close.
Ever since then I have tried to find it in my 10" and struggled. Recently I did find it and the view was more like your older sketch and much harder to see.
Jupiter on the night of the 13th. Same scope but with the 6mm eyepiece plus barlow to give 216X. This is the best view I ever got of a once again disappointing Jupiter.(For its size I see far more detail on Mars than I do on any other planet.)
Seeing - good
Transparency - excellent
Time - 9:00 - 10:00 p.m
You have picked one big sucker! Jupiter is for me one of the most technically challenging objects to sketch. There are significant contrast variations, and a lot of faint whispyness pouring in and out of these. It also requires a lot of time and concentration to tease out those details.
I was just talking to a good mate about Jupiter today! A quick look WILL NOT show all that subtle swirling detail. It requires a lot of time and brain work/training. For being a giant, it is a master of disguise. Jupiter visually can reveal as much detail as can be seen in Voyager images! But it requires a combination of great seeing (thermally stable atmosphere), a good scope, and bucket loads of training your eyes/brain. Then you have to couple these to a challenging graphic!
Ralph, your rendition is a good one. BUT, BUT, I have a challenge for you! Look to revisit Jupiter. You are now armed with your best ally - experience. Give yourself time. If conditions are not great, don't bother. Jupiter is not the King of the Gods for nothing. It demands the best conditions to reveal the best it has.
This is the approach I take with the Moon. If conditions are not up to it, then I just pack up. But if I at least notice a good amount of clear moments, I have a crack. Makes for tough going though. But when conditions are great, I can push things to 400X, and go nuts with so much detail on offer. I missed out on Jupiter last season. The ducks just didn't line up. I will be paying a bit more attention to it from now with your inspiration, .
Challenge met!
Jupiter on the night of February 28th. The seeing was very good, the transparency was below average with some haze around, the two moons showing are from the left Europa and Io. It was just 1 hour short of seeing the Io transit along with the great red spot but there will be a next time. I observed for about 3/4 hour, intending to get up early for morning plants but saw some quite satisfying detail in the equatorial zone as well as in the south tropical zone and a large dark area in both polar regions.
As a side observation, I looked at Mercury on the morning of March 1st but was disappointed with the very poor seeing especially after the quality of the evening and only saw the phase which was a just-past-half.
These are the first sketches I have done since I sketched Halley's Comet. So I know very little about what I am doing, but I owe all that information to Alex Massey, so I want to publicly thank him very much for passing on his knowledge to me.
All the field stars in these 2 sketches I have placed as accurately as I could. The sky was very dark where I was observing and there were hundreds of stars in the field of view. I attempted to include only the brighter ones, as I thought the sketch might get overwhelmed if I kept going with more stars, and I wanted the main object to be the centre of attention. But, what is the general consensus, would more field stars improve the sketch?
I couldn't resolve any stars in the Globular Cluster using my 4", so no machine gunning with the pencil was required.
I really enjoyed doing these and having something to show for my night of observing. Sketching is something I look forward to continuing with and improving at in the future.
Well done and congratulations Allan on your first astro sketches in so long!
Both sketches are very nice renditions, and the red star in the first is a nice touch, Did you ever think sketching a GC would be as simple and effective as with the Mellish Technique! NGC 2808 really glows. And the nebulosity also in the first sketch is textured and subtle - nice effects, great composition with the cluster, and a great challenge to give yourself.
My take on sketching is, if you can see it, put it down. You can't have too much, after all, you otherwise dismiss the aperture grunt your scope is giving you. No need to lay down absolutely every single star you see accurately - you'll never finish. But once you are happy with what you've painstakingly laid down, some artistic license is merited to help give the sketch the punch of the softer details. For me this is what gives the sketch depth and richness, otherwise it can resemble a black page with some dots. And some more sparkle can be given to the brighter stars with a tiny set of diffraction spikes.
Thanks Alex, there will be more, next new moon at SPSP, see you there.
Yes I think I need more stars, but it took me so long to place the ones you see. But I understand what you are saying about placing the fainter ones in a more general position rather than fussing over their exact position. I will try that next time.
Building the core of the glob using a brush with cut of bristles is like magic. It really brings it to life so quick and easy.
I thought about adding spikes to the bright stars, but I am not keen to do that using the refractor. It's one of the things I like about it, that the stars are so sharp. Anyway what I did was turn the sharp point flat by running it across the sand paper and making bigger star points like that. I will bring on the spikes when I use my Dob as the brighter stars certainly show spikes in that scope.
Not technically a sketch, but I still wanted to post it. Here is Saturn on the night of the 23rd, morning of the 24th. At only 12 hours past opposition, the rings looked incredibly bright and pure. 4 moons were visible, Tethys on the right and Dione above Saturn. Unfortunately, the photo itself isn't very good, but it loses very little detail.
The image itself is a painting, done on the afternoon of the 24th, working off the sketch done at the specified time down the bottom.
scope - 130mm F/5 Newtonian
eyepeices - 11mm TV plossl for the moons(59X), 6mm orion edge-on+celestron 2X barlow for planet(217X).
Seeing - excellent
transparency - good
time - 10:30 pm - 12:30 am(sketch), about 2 hours on 24th for painting
date - 23.5.15 - 24.5.15
I for one don't have any problem with a painting. Today, the only 'regret' I have about this thread is that it has "sketch" in its title, and not 'illustration' or some other more encompassing term.
There are some illustration techniques that better fulfill some people's passion than sketching. Painting is certainly one of them. It can help render ideas, emotions, even capture subtleties in ways a pencil cannot. After all, illustrations, as much as any other amateur form of imaging, are all a personal interpretation of an object.
Ralph, I used black paper and white pastel. Then followed the Mellish technique as taught by Alex.
Last month at SPSP Alex passed on an interesting fact. This technique used by Scott Mellish dates back a long time, pre photography. Early observers used it to record very realistic impressions of what they saw in the eyepiece. I feel like we are keeping a bit of history alive by continuing its use.
Omega Centauri is one of my favourite deep sky objects, and along with 47 Tucanae, one of the best 2 globular clusters in the sky (IMO). It shines at magnitude 3.7 and is an easy naked eye object, appearing as a luminous patch in the sky. It is 15,600 light years away and contains several million stars.
An interesting detail I have tried to show in the sketch are the "eyes" in the centre of the cluster, which are always burnt out in photo images. They are not immediately obvious for first time observers, but eventually become apparent as areas devoid of resolvable stars. It appears as if you are looking through them and into the core of the cluster.
I was honoured to be able to look at Allan's work earlier this year at SPSP. Lovely, lovely work!
Below is my first DSO sketch in some 7 months. And I sketched the same object twice in the one night!
The Veil Nebula had never been an object I entertained the idea of being able to view. But with the excellent transparency we had during Astrofest, the Veil presented as an extraordinary vista!
This is the first sketch I did of the Veil that night. The entire Veil just fit inside the field of view of the ES 30mm 82deg eyepiece (3deg TFOV!).
