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37 Cluster (NGC 2169)

Scooot

By Scooot
in Sketching

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Scooot

Scooot

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I enjoyed this. The numerals stood out very well, although upside down, because most of the surrounding stars were very dim or lost in the light polution. There was no moon but I don't think the seeing was very good.

I've attached a screen shot from my deep sky browser app for comparison. In this the double, struve 848 is shining brightly at the top of the 3. I didn't see this as a double so will have another look at it sometime.

post-20507-0-21890200-1418931204.jpg

post-20507-0-54774900-1418931250_thumb.j

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Qualia

Qualia

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Aye, it is a lovely sketch and a great presentation. Thank you for sharing this, Richard. I've been viewing quite a few clusters this monthThese open clusters of the winter look spectacular against the velvet black of the night :smiley:

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Scooot

Scooot

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very nicely done, if only i could sketch the jewels from the night sky.............but i cant draw a short straw to save my life

Thanks for looking and the nice comment, you should give it a go.

When I attempted a sketch a couple of months ago I hadn't drawn anything since primary school, all the artistic talent is in my wife's side of the family. I'd read a couple of times on here that no such talent is needed to sketch stars etc and it's true. My sketches are just a few dots carefully placed on the page, and not really very good dots at that if you look carefully, although I will get better. However that doesn't really matter, not to me anyway. I don't think the quality of the end result is particularly important, although there are some excellent sketches posted on here of much more detailed and complicated scenes than I attempt that are great to marvel at.

The act of sketching improves my observations and is a good record of what I actually see in the eyepiece. During the time it takes, the view changes, my eyes adjust, I think about the colours and brightness. I concentrate in different areas of the FOV to see if I've missed anything or put in the wrong place. It's very absorbing. I always compare what I've seen with sky safari and other people's sketches, which highlights the differing conditions in different parts of the world, equipment, and the orientation of the view at different times. Sometimes other things of interest come to light as a result, such as Struve 848 which I had another look at the other night. Or my mystery star, or someone (thank you Nick) will post another link to things of interest. It's also a nice record to flick back through the pages of the sketch book to refresh my not so good memory of things I've seen.

... and finally it's a very enjoyable bit of fun so if you fancy it, have a go, I would never have dreamed I'd be doing this, funny how things change during your life :)

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Stu

Stu

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Nice one Scoot. I was observing this myself the other night in the 85, looked very nice. The top of the 7 looked a bit dodgy, needed a bit more aperture but could see the shape very clearly, albeit reversed.

Just checked and Struve 848 is the centre and right stars at the top of the three, 26.1" separation so very easy split

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Stu

Stu

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Nice one Scoot. I was observing this myself the other night in the 85, looked very nice. The top of the 7 looked a bit dodgy, needed a bit more aperture but could see the shape very clearly, albeit reversed.

Just checked and Struve 848 is the centre and right stars at the top of the three, 26.1" separation so very easy split

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I've just checked this in the Cambridge Double Star Atlas (CDSA from now on!) and the info I gave above is wrong. This is where I find SkySafari can be annoyingly misleading.

It lists five entries for Struve 848, none of which tally with the CDSA.

Anyway, Scooot, your comment in your original post was correct ie that the top right star in the 3 is STF848. CDSA lists the two components with magnitudes 7.3 and 8.2 with a separation of 2.3". This ties in exactly with my observations last night in the Vixen when I had another look at NGC 2169. It is a lovely, uneven close double in this rather fun asterism, well worth a look if you have seen it yet.

Stu

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Scooot

Scooot

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Thanks Stu, I couldn't split it with my 8mm but I could tell it was the double, (although my arrows pointing to the wrong one in my sketch) a bit like the image above from the DSS, it looked slightly bloated. I'll have a go with my Barlow when I can.

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Scooot

Scooot

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Yes that's a good image of it. If you managed it at 150 I shouldn't need the Barlow, I'm surprised I didn't see it but I was looking at the cluster long enough whilst sketching it so I'm fairly sure I didnt. Maybe it was lost in a defraction spike, presume you used a frac. I wish I'd looked again tonight now. -:)

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Scooot

Scooot

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Just spent a while trying to split Struve 848 and was finding it a bit of a struggle. After half an hour I decided to check my colimation with the laser and felt a bit daft not having done it first. This made all the difference, could nearly do it with the 10mm 138x with the Paracorr, but it became much clearer with the 8mm 172x. The EQ Platform was making it vibrate up an down slightly but the smaller one showed up clearly in good periods of seeing. The smaller star seemed to be on the opposite side to your image Stu, presumably because of its orbit. Anyway, it was quite satisfying in the end.

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