M13 & M92 first ever sketches

[Mr niall]

Well it was clear last night so decided to take the new sketch book for a road test. Must admit I was terribly excited but also nervous as it was the first time I'd wielded a pencil in anger since year 9 art so wasn't sure what to expect. To say I don't have much ? skill is an understatement! But I've watched a few videos and read that amazing astronomical sketching book so felt reasonably well informed.

Anyway, like I said, had a whale of a time but naturally had a few challenges maybe those experienced out there could chip in with some critique and advice?...

biggest challenges were;

• nearly blinding myself every time I looked away from the eyepiece - I seemed to need quite a bright light to draw with!
• star placement; I'd read about the imaginary clock, which was good; but it all came apart when I had to decide how far in to put them! Also- the big issue was because I'm using a manual alt az mount everything kept moving! So I guess it's all relative.
• the biggest issue though was, and this is difficult to explain, because what I was looking at was relatively faint and...blobby... and I had to use averted seeing it really tease out the details - that I found it really difficult to pin down a specific image to draw. Does that make sense?!? M13 for example, seemed to ebb and flow, have a structure, lose a structure, have a shape, lose a shape - translating that into something on paper was a real toughie! I just sort of did a vague summary!
• knowing when to stop! Surprisingly - these pictures do actually look a tiny bit like what I was seeing! But I was worried about unconscious bias I.e. Are they maybe brighter and stronger than they really were based on what I wanted them to look like? How do you learn to be faithful to the view in the eyepiece? How to keep a whispy smudge just a whispy smudge and resist the urge to make it darker or more defined - especially when you've gone to the trouble of getting your drawing pad out?

anyway, like I said, tremendous fun - and amazingly have woken up with a really clear image in my head of exactly what I was looking at last night, and that was brought to life again when I looked at my sketches (however terrible they are) so definitely time well spent!

[Richard Hather]

Trust me on this Niall everyone whose started in sketchin has felt everything you describe.

Your sketches are great detailed and look like what they should.

Keeping track of the object and trying to compensate for changing conditions comes easier with experience.

Im using a 12" dob for my sketching and it's or easy without tracking but going from a 6" goto to this is truly amazing.

The trade off is worth it but it's a lot more effort to get a realistic sketch because as you say the temptation is always to put more detail then is actually observable.

You did a great job though even if this wasn't your first sketches.

If you have a scanner you could try inverting the images, for me the sketches truly coming to life then.

Here is a pic of what I use for my sketching, any questions or advice I will answer as best I can ?

Clear skies ?✨???

 

[David Levi]

Well @Mr niall, you didn't pick any easy targets to get started. Superb description of your thoughts on the problems of sketching and good sketches. I've never done a sketch but have been thinking about it very recently. Your experience, I hope, will spur me on to get started.

[Mr niall]

Thanks everyone, had a play at inverting and tidying on Lightroom. Came up with the attached. Looks good but feels a little like cheating for some reason?...

[Richard Hather]

3 hours ago, Mr niall said:

Thanks everyone, had a play at inverting and tidying on Lightroom. Came up with the attached. Looks good but feels a little like cheating for some reason?...

Honestly with the amount of tidying and software that imagers use I'm sure we will be forgiven for inverting from white to black and adjusting the light ?

That looks really good Niall excellent representation of M13 and I sense another member whose got bit by the sketching bug ?

[N3ptune]

Awesome report and sketches @Mr niall I enjoyed reading it a lot.

I find it very hard to sketch a DSO especially when I have to look at them in averted vision, then looking at the paper with the red light, it's messing up the dark adaptation. I found practical to use more memory to remember what I see at the eyepiece, then sketch. This, to cut the number of time I switch from eyepiece to paper.

For DSO, I use a 9 red LEDs custom flash light I built myself, I use cheap AAA batteries too so it's kind of a dim lamp after all. With that, I struggle somewhat to see what I do on the paper but the goal is to to preserve my dark adaptation, there is a ratio to respect to be able to achieve both tasks.

If this can help, hopefully.

I don't think it's cheating to invert colors in an image processor. Using lead pencils, it's very time consuming to draw inverted.

Again! nice sketches and report of M13 and M92, 2 lovely clusters.

 

[mariosi]

Very good sketchs and observation of M13 and M92! 

 

Marios

[Victor Boesen]

That was excactly how m92 looked in my scope the other night!

[Wiu-Wiu]

Impressive first sketches! You have taken very hard objects! As you said, sometimes it's hard to translate to paper exactly what you are seeing, I think you did a great job! You certainly got the fine glow right! If you could draw your stars in with a fine black pen, you'll be able to make them "pop" out more of the nebulousity. 

My first M13 on paper looked like what I saw, but looking at the sketch afterwards, it looks...  weird. 

Inverting isn't cheating  There's lots of things that make your sketch look more alive and still accurate. Inverting a sketch does make it more realistic. 

Looking forward to your next sketches! 

[Sky-J]

I think they're amazing results for a first sketch, great work. If I could get anything close to this when I start I'd be very happy. I'd agree with the other about inverting, definitely not cheating and really shows how well you did.

Can I ask where you got the sketchbook from?

Thanks and I look forward to seeing more!

[Stub Mandrel]

Well I'm impressed. If you do another ten sketches can you stack them? Do you have to use blank pages for flats?