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Some Messier Sketches...


Qualia

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Very nice sketches :) Mine are done quickly with a pen sometimes, just to get relative position of some things, some scribbles and notes, that's it, just to make sure I know and remember if it was a tricky object to find. I am never patient enough to make such art works whilst I am out under the sky :D

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Yes, very nice sketches Qualia and very good detail. I can understand why you only manage about two sketches a night.

I also just do a quick sketch of my observations and then try and do them a bit more neatly when I come in after an

observing session. They are just to keep a record of what I have observed and to look back on my observations in years to

come. The quality of my sketches is nowhere near as good as yours but hopefully will improve with practice.

Avtar

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Alex, Avtaram and Michael, thank you all for your kindness and encouragement. Your thoughts and generosity are really heart felt :smiley:

I generally do most of my sketches as you guys, a general note keeping source and that is more than suffice. If I'm viewing from the city it's a very rough plot of some cluster or double etc and out in the darker scrub-lands perhaps I'll do just a little more but not much more.

Alex and Avtaram, It would be lovely to see some of your sketches.

P.S. Just saw your message, Jetstream. Thank you. Ay, the Moonshane is a most wonderful bit of kit. A lot of love, kindness and art went into its construction.

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Ay, dark sites help but even then the given object doesn't always jump at you and one needs to sit for quite sometime before the blending stub or pencil can be selected. In that way, a more complex sketch - which would be clusters and nebulae for me - may last about 60 minutes or so but that doesn't include sitting time, a simpler sketch may only take 15 to 30 minutes, tops.

What is important to remember is that often sketches are conducted on the 'edge-of-visibility' and there's a real dubious line between observational certainty and the just-no-way-did-he-see-that and this line is a complex division made of atmospheric conditions, quality of optics, one's observing site, experience, patience, mental state and fatigue etc. What makes matters even worse is that this line shifts from night to night, observation to observation.

I mean, just look at the difference between, say, this sketch of M 31 and this of M 2.

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post-21324-0-76386700-1377986780_thumb.j

In the former, once it was scanned into the computer (the original is a lot more subtle) I thought to myself, 'did I really see all of that?' I mean, M32 and M 101 are doing fine, but M 31! The sketch has made the core huge and the galaxy itself has a 3D effect which wasn't really so apparent in the eyepiece (not to the extent the sketch exhibits) but all I can do is leave the sketch as it is and another night try again and see how that goes. But is it a lie? No, it was what was sketched.

In the latter, I know for sure I saw more. M 2 jumped at me like an exploding firework, it left me spell bound. It was so beautiful I can still see myself seeing it that night but the sketch doesn't show this detail and sight in any manner.

And the point of all this? Although I feel all those who are doing sketches are doing them to the utmost of their ability, concerned about high standards and accuracy, myself included, the viewer must not be 'fooled' by them. At all times he must remind himself of that illusive line the drawer is playing around with.

When I question myself about what I've sketched (other than open clusters), I ask myself, 'Did you see that?' And sometimes I can't answer myself. It's a yes, of course I saw that but there's the doubting of a no. It's not a pleasurable situation to be in, but all that is possible is to sketch again another night and see how that turns out.

But when I ask myself, will others be able to see that kind of thing if they have similar olptics, experience and sitting time at a similar site? I always think, yes, yes they will, for afterall, I saw it myself :smiley: .

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Thank you for that as you said depends on experience and level of competence there's also each one of us look at things slightly different and as you said different nights, fatigue all come into play in what our eyes see. Ive seen the ring nebula as a distinct smoke ring in the sky other nights a blob it just depends. I really must go to dark site though ive been trying to see the Leo trio for 2 years and M51 M81 and M82.

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