Telescope Reviews: Light Cup first DSO sketch: M51

Umm, no observing reports from the big bad buckets

. Well then, let my Light Cup beat them to the pack

.

Wow, DSO sketching is much tougher than planetary sketching

! I had a really hard time trying to make it looked as close as through the eyepiece as possible by playing with the Adobe Photoshop and still can't get it quite the way I saw it from my backyard. The most difficult was trying to represent a range of brightness iand the
gradual dimming away from the core in the sketch and then try to fine-tuned it with software

.
http://members.cox.net/ronby/DSO-Sketches/M51-051803.jpg

The 12mm Radian (73x) was a start of a good view but I prefer the 8mm Radian (110x) much better (though slightly dimmer) as it gave a nice balance between magnification, brightness and contrast. The star in M51 was made visible with direct vision by using the 5mm (176x) and 4mm (220x) Radian (mag 13.5 by the way

!). At 176x, the core of NGC 5195 seems brighter than M51. I've definitely had a better view of this pair from my backyard last year.

Telescope: 4" TV-102 Light Cup
Naked-Eye Limiting Magnitude: 5.6 near M51 (hazy sky in the day)
Sketch Time: 05/18/03 3:30UT - 4:30UT
Software Time: !@#$%^& over an hour

.

Interestingly, this is the first time I use my motor drive on DSOs. Now I know I like the slow motion knob a heck of a lot better, especially when changing eyepiece as I need to slew to the star SAO 44642 which I used for precise focusing. Too slow with the control

. The Radian's eye relief was a god-sent as I spent an hour sketching!

Checking with O'Meara's sketch, nope - mine ain't anywhere close to as nice. But interestingly, looking at John Mallas' sketch with his 4" Unitron refractor, mine is a lot closer ;-). This is a "throwing in the towel" (where's the Graemlins for this one?) treadingly too tough

!

Ron the 4-inch Tall Evangelist B[ee]
PS - If you can't see the sketch well with your monitor, try inverting the image (from black to white).

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5-inch Tele Vue NP127 APO

4-inch Tele Vue TV-102 APO

8-inch f/6 Discovery PDHQ Dob

Edited by Ron B[ee] (05/19/03 02:00 PM)