Category Archives: Sketches

Astronomical sketches.

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Double Cluster in Perseus and NGC 663

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My sketch of the Double Cluster in Perseus

Tonight was humid but the last cloudless night before several days of cloudiness. So I headed back to Long Sault Conservation Area for a dark sky. I brought the Nightwatch book to reference the objects I wanted to observe tonight in Perseus and Cassiopeia.

It was already pitch black when I got there and was glad to see another stargazer lying down on the grass with his binoculars. His company set me at ease and allowed me to hunt and sketch NGC 663 in a more relaxed manner. Not realizing one of the collimation screws was already backed out all the way, it came lose. It took me 10 minutes to put it back.

My sketch of NGC 663

I was half way through sketching the double cluster when he approached me for some small talk and to say goodbye. After he left, I was once again alone and uneasy so I rushed through the double cluster leaving out a lot of the details. I had been observing for 2 hours and didn’t realize that my OTA and primary was literally dripping in condensation so I packed up.

Once again, it was a very productive night for me. I am no longer questioning my telescope’s optics. It was just a matter of finding a dark sky.

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I finally found M13 and the Milky Way

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A sketch of Messier 13 (M13)

Tonight, I set out to go to a dark site alone at the Long Sault Conservation Area in Clarington, Ontario. I was there scouting the area last night. I brought my gear with me, but it was too cloudy last night. Tonight, was humid with patches of fog, and below average seeing, but the center of the sky was clear enough.

I left 30 minutes after sunset and the site was 20 minutes away, so by the time I was setting up my equipment, it was almost pitch black.

Milky Way Galaxy: I looked up at the sky and found that there was haze near the horizon. And then, what I thought was a strip of haze across the middle of the sky… was actually the Milky Way. Wow! This was the first time I have laid eyes on it! It was spectacular! There were so many stars, I was disoriented at first and didn’t know where the constellations were.

This was my chance to see if I needed to upgrade my telescope! So I aimed my Telrad at the spot where I knew M13 was supposed to be, looked into my eyepiece and… BAM! There it was! I couldn’t believe it! It was a dark circular patch of dim stars!

M13: Out goes my sketching kit and I started sketching away. As the sketching session wore on, my observation skills improved. I started using averted vision and I noticed more fainter stars that ended up in my sketch. I have attached my first sketch of M13.

M31: After that, I aimed at M31 and BAM! There it was: the Andromeda Galaxy and off to the left is what looks like a smaller faint object. But my goal tonight was to sketch M13 only so I just observed it.

So in the end, I really did “upgrade” my telescope just by driving 20 minutes away. This is my most successful outing so far and it wasn’t even a good seeing night. I am really enjoying hunting and sketching. Clear skies!

All, Observations, Sketches

My First Astronomy Sketch: Jupiter and its moons

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My first astronomy sketch: Jupiter and its moons

Last night, I only had a window of less than 2 hours to look for M13 but I still did not find it. Haze had started to form near the horizon and my next door neighbour decided to keep their porch lights on tonight creating a glow in my view. I gave up after 2 hours and set up my alarm to wake me up at 4:30 AM so that I can check out Jupiter and Mars.

Fast forward to 4:30 AM:

My first view of the gas giant through light haze made my jaw drop. Here I am looking at what Galileo first saw 400 years ago. I took the opportunity to line-up my telrad as well. At first, it was just a white disk waving like a flag with 2 moons to the right. After fine-tuning my focuser I noticed 2 faint lines above the equator. After 5 minutes, I noticed a fainter third line near the top pole, and another moon appeared closer to the planet but in a more southern orbital plane. There also appears to be a 4th moon but it seems too far to the left that it might be a star.

I tried to take a picture of it using my phone to no avail. So I quickly looked for a piece of paper and a pen and made a rough sketch of it (attached). This was a lot of fun and self-gratifying!

While I was there, I also looked at Mars, but it was just an unremarkable faint brown dot. The Orion nebula was just to the right so I scanned it but the moon was just too bright and the haze was too much.

Overall, this morning’s experience was an unforgettable one, and I have a sketch I will remember it by.