YogSothoth

welcome to the forums

Can I ask, are you completely new to astronomy or just telescopic astronomy? If you’re new to astronomy, the night sky can be quite confusing, and you’ll really benefit from just sitting outside for a bit with a simple star map, like the Phillip’s planisphere. You can use this for getting used to the night sky and starting to identify constellations. Start off with the more obvious ones such as Ursa Major, Leo, Cygnus and you’ll soon become familiar with what’s up there. This will make finding things so much easier as well as giving you a sense of connection to the night sky. You can do this while your eyes are becoming dark adapted and your scope is cooling down to reach thermal equilibrium with the ambient temperature.

On 02/06/2024 at 22:51, AlcorAlly said:

Thank you! It’s a Staedtler mechanical pencil, one of these:

 

About 20 years ago I used to have the “original” version which had a nice weight to it. The modern ones aren’t the same but still ok. The sketches are done on white paper, then inverted on iPhone app with a dash of colour applied. 

I’m curious now what pencil you use for the solar sketches  

Ah I see, thanks for that. I was wondering about the colour and thought maybe you were using coloured pencils, but adding colour with the I phone sounds like a good idea. I’ve tried using coloured pencils and it never looks right. 
 

I use a mixture Derwent Graphic and Derwent Precision pencils. The precision pencils are mechanical. 

Thanks. Yes there’s a lot going on isn’t there. Solar is my main interest this time of year due to the short nights, so it’s nice that it’s so active at the moment.

Really good sketches. Can I ask what pencils you use? 

Great sketches with a nice lot of detail 

A nice bright day today, but the seeing wasn’t great. At least it wasn’t raining 😃

5 hours ago, cloudyweather said:

I've ordered the Starfield 102mm, a Sightron Alt Az mount and the StellaLyra CF tripod. Along with hopefully a nice selection of eyepieces (3.2mm, 5mm, 12mm BST StarGuider and 30mm StellaLyra) plus a Solar Wedge (seems the year for it!!!).  I can add a HD mount later.

Many thanks all, Sean

A good choice and I’m sure you’ll be very happy with. A good 4” scope is a great all rounder. Just one thing. It doesn’t appear to come with a diagonal, so you might want to add one of those as well.

Good work, very impressive sketches

Great sketches. I love sketching the sun. No dark adaptation or fiddling about trying to see with a red torch. Mind you, I still like to sketch clusters and doubles. 

Great sketch. I use Space Weather as well, and it’s interesting to compare what I sketch with their images

3 minutes ago, SwiMatt said:

Nice work! Drawing in a rush is not ideal, but it can be a great exercise - especially with this type of hobby. You still managed to take in lots of details, that's great! 

Thanks. As is typical, I looked out the window and it was clear blues sky, so I thought I’d do a few chores and then go and sit outside for a bit and do some observing. 1/2 hr later I looked out and there was lots of cloud building up 🤣

A sketch of the sun yesterday morning before the clouds arrived. They were just starting to build up as I began sketching, so some of it was done through a bit of a haze. The annotations are taken from Space Weather Live.

Great sketch. It’s a difficult cluster to sketch, as I know from when I tried it recently.

Great sketches and observing doubles in open clusters is certainly an intriguing idea. 

Very good sketch, especially as you’re starting out with solar. I do a lot of solar sketching myself, but I tend to just sketch in the sunspots. Might have a go at this limb darkening though…….if the rain ever stops ☔️

Really good sketches there. I must have a go at the moon myself.

Great sketches. Sketching really makes you observe an object, rather than just looking at it.

9 hours ago, josefk said:

That looks pretty accurate @YogSothoth - i took the liberty of identifying a coupe of double star targets in M44 if thats your thing - i'm identifying the primaries with the arrows not identifying you drew them with their secondaries already 🙂 - sounds a bit left field i know but i am currently compiling a list of targets in targets (double stars in Messier open clusters basically) so these were top of mind this morning...

Top arrow is 38 Cancri (possibly), and the bottom arrow is 41 Cancri (possibly)

Thanks for that. I’m quite interested in double stars, so I’ll have a look next time. I was using a 24mm eyepiece, giving me a mag of x31, so I didn’t notice that the stars you pointed out were doubles. I’ll have a look using a higher magnification next time

1 hour ago, SwiMatt said:

Very nice sketch!

Thanks. I’m quite pleased with it, although some of the fainter stars seem have increased in magnitude a bit in my sketch 😂

Great sketches 

A clear night last night, although a bit chilly, so I thought I’d have a go at M44 (Beehive cluster). I wonderful sight in the eyepiece.

3 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Great sketches! 

Thanks 🙂

11 minutes ago, josefk said:

M53 was 'my first Messier' (i.e. knowingly looked at "as a Messier object" and discounting M45 because i don't know when i first saw that) so M53 has a special resonance for me and i know those two stars you have near it very well - could you see the nearby NGC 5053 - i have managed to not see that twice in the past two years of looking - it didn't ought to be that hard so i'm not sure what the issue is...

It’s the first time I’ve seen M53, but I’ll be revisiting it I think. There was a very thin veil of hazy cloud about by the time I’d got to it, so I’m sure I could get a better view. I didn’t see NGC 5053, but something else to look out for in the future. 

12 minutes ago, SwiMatt said:

Nice sketches! I take it this is pencils on white and reversed? 

Can I ask you what Bortle you operate from? I never saw M3 quite so clearly in my very light polluted skies! (I cannot say it ever looked "great" in my skies  )

 

I have replied to your post but forgot to quote 🤣

Thanks, yes it white paper and pencil reversed. I use Derwent blending stumps to soften the edges. I’m in a small village in West Sussex and the skies a reasonably dark, although Gatwick is to the North, about 12 miles away. I would guess at around B4 maybe. Also, none of my neighbours have external lights and all the street lights go off at 12pm, which is nice.