Guest speaker at the Macarthur Astronomy Forum in April, directly after the AGM, was Alexander Massey, an amateur astronomer from Maroubra, with a passion to sketch the objects which he observes through the eyepiece.
Tue, 24. April 2012
Astro-Speaker Watch - April 2012
Astro-sketching is an art which was practised considerably more in the past when astro-imaging was a far more prohibitively expensive hobby, than it is now. I thought it had probably died out and so I was surprised to learn about Alex and his very considerable talent.
Whilst he modestly attributes his technique to the late Scott Mellish, Alex is a natural artist with great talent. How it is possible to produce such accurate renditions at the eyepiece – in darkness (!!) – is beyond me.
It's well worth revisiting the article by Alex which appeared in last month's issue (April) of Prime Focus, in which he explains his passion for sketching astronomical objects - but to truly appreciate the fine detail of his artwork, you will need to download the “print quality” version of Prime Focus from the website. Some of his sketch details are quite exquisite!
Alex showed us the basics of his technique, which is to use black and white crayons on black paper, using sandpaper and a soft paintbrush to administer dust from the crayon to capture the nebulosity. After explaining how to do it he showed us a few examples of his work, handed out the stationery and got us all sketching the Swan Nebula.
I wonder how everyone else got on with their sketching? My artistic skills can only be compared with a butcher attempting heart by-pass surgery, so my effort at sketching M17 is embarrassingly unprintable. However, after this vain attempt to sketch it from a large projected image, I think I need to revisit the Swan Nebula to see if I can pick out the same detail that Alex can through the eyepiece. It will be rising after Scorpius in the East over the next few months.
'Wikipedia' describes the Swan Nebula as follows:
“The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Lobster Nebula, and the Horseshoe Nebula (catalogued as Messier 17 or M17 and as NGC 6618) is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745. Charles Messier catalogued it in 1764. It is located in the rich starfields of the Sagittarius area of the Milky Way.
The Omega Nebula is between 5,000 and 6,000 light-years from Earth and it spans some 15 light-years in diameter. The cloud of interstellar matter of which this nebula is a part is roughly 40 light-years in diameter. The total mass of the Omega Nebula is an estimated 800 solar masses.
An open cluster of 35 stars lies embedded in the nebulosity and causes the gases of the nebula to shine due to radiation from these hot, young stars.”
This was my lame effort:
(This article has been submitted for publishing in the May edition of Prime Focus magazine, the monthly Journal of Macarthur Astronomical Society.)
in Astro Forum: MAS
at
17:51
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