Mike JW

Another excellent sketch. I keep trying out the charcoal/chalk technique but it just does not work for me. Your sketch has a definite 3D feel to it - enhanced I think by doing a narrow strip of black, rather than doing a wide strip - I shall try this idea out. Very interesting area of the moon which I have yet to venture to with any serious sketch in mind. Thanks for posting. Mike

I tend to use sketching pencils - 2B, 4B, 6B, For black I have been trying out Indian Ink and a small artist brush (needs two coats). For white I use gel pens. Charcoal makes such a mess. I find carbon pencils are good for the black shadows. All my sketches are roughed out at the eyepiece and then done indoors. No way could I do them at the eyepiece. Looking forward to your pencil sketches. Mike

This the third sketch from my outing on Jan 3rd. I have looked at Alphonsus many times and with its companions Ptolemaeus and Arzachel makes for a wonderful sight. Alphonsus is about 118km in diameter. Its messed up walls rise to 2700m or thereabouts. To me the crater has a hint of being hexagonal. It has a lone central peak which rises to 1.5km and sits on a ridge of material. This ridge is possibly ejecta material from the Imbrium impact. Some folk in the past thought the central peak might have been volcanic but latest evidence suggests it is not – I assume it is a rebound structure after the original impact. Some of the crater walls have linear valleys (troughs) which point to Mare Imbrium and thus are likely to be due to flying chunks of rocks hurtling through the crater walls – what a sight that must been. Until this particular sketch I had not registered the dark areas in the crater floor. They are pyroclastic deposits from volcanoes in the crater although some folk suggest they are due to impacts bringing up dark material from below. However close up images show volcanic vents in the area. Rilles are also found in the areas of these dark spots. Not far away was Crater Flammarion. I am not sure I have bothered to have a proper look at this impact crater.It is 75km across with a fairly smooth flat floor. On this occasion the freaky crater shadows on the East were just jaw dropping, so a sketch had to be created. The black, deep crater at the top is Mosting and from its shadow it must have two higher peaks as indicated by the pointy shadows at the north and south end of its shadow. I always enjoy "spot the peaks" - the next ridge down has one peak, the next one south has 3 and in decreasing height? I wonder what the real situation is? As I played this game I suddenly noticed there was a funny line on the northern end of Crater F. Close inspection revealed Rima Flammarion ( a new one to me). Images show it extending out of the crater to the east. Amazingly so its line coincides exactly with the edge of the big triangle shadow so no chance for me to spot its Eastward journey. Two different fonts in this posting as I copied and pasted the first paragraph from my records. Mike

Jan 3rd was one of those steady transparent skies. In addition to my previous post I wanted to take a look at the crater Regiomontanus because it has an interesting central peak. True to form I got side tracked due to there being so much of interest in the area. I did have a close look at the central peak and yes there it was - a crater let right at the top of the peak. Then I spotted that there was a shallow valley running NE from it, down the Eastern slope. West from the cratered peak the slope is much steeper, resulting in a wonderful shadow. Further inspection revealed a minor peak to the south and a ridge running north. Then I started pondering why is the central peak not in the centre of the crater? I soon realised that the crater to the north, Purbach was younger and had smashed up and totally obliterated the original northern crater rim. Thus making the once central peak, now apparently an off set central peak. Looking at Purbach it looks like any central peak got covered by lava, then ridges caught my eye - remains of what must be ghost craters - just had to mark those on the rough sketch. And so it went on. What a cracking crater Thebit is, the one at the top of the sketch. In the end I just gave up - so much to absorb. I marked on key shadows and a few key details, deciding that I would have to rely on an image of the area to add extra details to my sketch. On the sketch I have done a circular inset to try to show the detail of the Regiomontanus central peak. Mike

Morning Martin, I too noticed the face in the crater, probably an accident of my artistic license. I was sorely tempted to add a mouth. Definitely male. I too cannot work out the moon maiden. Black felt is OK. Next I am going to experiment with Black Indian ink and a fine paint brush, to try to get an even and true black. So many black felts dry and show the blue pigment in ink (remember chromatography at school with black ink). Maybe we can start a new trend of "shadow shapes" look a likes or something. Your comments made me smile. Mike

I visited this area back in August and noted the Gylden Valley whilst I was sketching Ptolemaeus and others. At the time I noted the valley. This visit was centred on Gylden Valley itself. It has been hard to find information about it other than it is about 47km wide and is part of the Imbrium Radial Structure. It must have been an enormous piece of rock flying at low altitude as it gouged out this cleft. In the valley I caught site of longitudinal curving ridges. Crater Gylden, bottom left (southern) at the end of the valley. It must have occurred after the cleft was formed as it impinges on the valley. Gylden crater has been lava filled and interestingly so the central peaks are off centre. Crater Sporer impinges on the valley on the opposite side at the Northern end with no sign of a central peak. Below Sporer is Herschel N and to its West is the the big imposing crater of Herschel. Noting all the impacts in the area it is a wonder this cleft survives at all. Part of Ptolemaeus just sneaks into my sketch. Black is done in felt. Some of the white is gel pen. The rest is with a 4b graphite pencil and smoothed out with blending stump. Mike

Hi Roelb, Stick with it. I was all set for last night but the cloud rolled in so once again time wasted and sleep lost for no gain.

Superb sketch. Mike

I always enjoy sharing and comparing results - we can always learn from others. Thanks Dick for posting your capture. Mike

I have begun my exploration of the Thin Flat Galaxies by heading off to Bootes. They make such a contrast to face on spirals. Visually fun to observe but at times very difficult to tease out their presence, so once again EAA comes to the fore. Below is the Bootes collection observed two nights ago. Mike C11 @ f6.3 generally 20 x 10 sec subs. Cropped and cleaned up a bit in photoshop.

Rob, I had wondered the same. I have used this link which is very professionally produced and imaged - http://images.mantrapskies.com/search. I have put my efforts into my own document which includes my original, and the cropped image, a few notes and a cropped version from the link above. My efforts are of course a record using the EAA technique. Mike

My Arp journey began back in February 2019. I hoped to be able to complete the challenge using EAA in a year. Last night (actually this morning) I visited the final few. There are 8 of them I cannot see from my site in GB. I plan to re-visit a few and no doubt when others post their results I will be prompted to take another look. Some of my results have been rubbish. It has been a wonderful journey. What next. I quite fancy the Thin Flat galaxies. About 140 are within reach of my site. Dare I start the VV galaxies - well over a thousand are doable for me. Thanks to Martin for the inspiration for both these possibilities. Arp 192 - NGC 3303 in Leo It is two interacting spiral galaxies with a huge tidal spray. About 300 million lyrs away. C11 @ f6.3, 22 x 10sec subs. Cleaned up in photoshop and I blurred the galaxy to give a more natural look. As is often the case in GB humidity was over 90%. Mike

Thanks for posting, always an encouragement to see what can be achieved.

Wonderful to see what you can achieve and thanks for posting.

A very enjoyable and informative read. Mike

Your are right, I have indeed captured them. Thanks for taking the time to have a closer look. Mike

Hi Elpajare, I have been out there tonight under poor skies, frost on the gear but I could not resist having another look at Arp 41, this time with the C11, @f6.3. 17 x 15 secs, 2x2 binning. I had to sacrifice some detail to reduce down the noise and I was looking through mist and wood burner smoke. Much better shot compared to my previous one with the C9.25. Mike

A brief window of clear non Christmas Eve enabled me to try for some more Eridanus Hicksons. Mike C11 @ f6.3 and generally 20 x 10 sec subs, tidied up a bit in photoshop and cropped. Hickson 24 - A fairly tight group of faint galaxies HCG 24a 24b 24c 24d 24e "Name" PGC 12477 PGC 12501 PGC 12472 PGC 12489 PGC 12492 Type SO Sba SBO SOa EO Mag. 15.2 14.9 16.6 17.5 17.6 Hickson 26 - a very compact group of 6 galaxies HCG 26a 26b 26c 26d 26e 26f 26g "Name" PGC 12610 PGC 12613 PGC 12604 PGC 12614 PGC 12605 PGC 12615 PGC 12611 Type Scd EO SO cI Im cI SO Mag. 16.0 15.6 17.1 15.8 17.0 18.7 17.4 Hickson 27 A lovely chain of faint galaxies. HCG 27a 27b 27c 27d 27e 27f "Name" PGC 14873 PGC 14863 PGC 14870 PGC 14861 PGC 14866 PGC 14862 Type Sb Sbc Sa SOa SO SO Mag. 16.1 15.7 16.8 17.3 18.0 18.1

Hi Elpajare, Good to see you capturing the companion, supposedly on an arm of the main galaxy - you just picking up hints of it. Below is mine from February of this year. Only just got a hint of the companion, certainly no arm leading to it. Some folk think the companion is just a line of sight galaxy. I did get some asymmetry in the companion but this cold be noise. Mike C9.25 @ f6.3 11 x 10sec subs and cleaned up a bit and cropped in photoshop. Poor tracking as well as the stars are elongated. Must try and revisit this one with the C11

All these interesting objects you keep posting for us - it is side tracking me from my galaxy quest!!! Many thanks. Mike

Dower House - that takes me back. Mike

Hi Rob, You are almost certainly right that I could not see it visually with my 15" scope but I shall try on an exceptional night. Just taken a look at your link - superb set of shots. If only we could have some clear nights........ Mike

New to me as well. I wonder if I could get it visually with my Dob. Now on my EAA list. Thanks for bringing this DSO to our attention. Mike

Many thanks Martin. I have read through the thread - amazed at the work you did. I did not understand some of the technical stuff but got the gist of your research. A very helpful thread. Cheers, Mike

Probably a naive question. For EAA and going after DSOs is it better to have larger or smaller pixel size. I go round and round in circles trying to make sense of the technical info. Currently have an Ultrastar mono. Looking to buy a second camera -ZWO ASI 174 or the Altair 174 Mon , both with 5.86 pixel size but then I think should I get a camera with much smaller pixels eg ZWO 224 or Altair GPCam3 290. Currently I tend to do stacks of 7 to 10 seconds and up to about 20 in the stack, using my C11 at f6.3, or 15" Dob at f4.5 but could use my 7" Mak Cas. Thanks for any help you can give in this technical mine field. Mike