It seems mad that in this day in age that people even contemplate sketching what you see through your scope. I'm mean, why bother when we have cameras which can 'see' far better than the human eye? All those beautiful colours and textures of nebula and far away star fields, its all lost in a sketch surely?

Well yeah in a way it is (to an imager) but if you have decided on being an observer then I think its probably one of the best things you can do!

At this point l've gotta say that l am a newbie astronomer. With 6 weeks worth of experience under my belt l'm not about to send my CV into Stargazing Live asking for a job!

I have done one sketch last week of M81/M82 but that one sketch helped me observe those far away galaxies more than you can imagine. By the time the sketch was complete I was seeing far more detail than when I started.

The completed sketch was then simply inverted in Photoshop and the result is something which actually looks very similar to what you see through your EP.

So all I can say is just give it a go. It doesn't matter if its not a masterpiece, you don't have to post it on the forum and it will cost you a fiver for some pencils!!!

I started a thread about it a couple weeks ago. Some good info there with links for sketching templates and allsorts.

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-sketches-unconventional/179606-what-do-i-need-start-sketching.html

;)