· Get a Cloudy Nights T-Shirt · Submit a Review / Article Click here if you are having trouble logging into the forums Privacy Policy | Please read our Terms of Service | Signup and Troubleshooting FAQ | Problems? PM a Red or a Green Gu… uh, User You are not logged in. [Login] Entrance · Main Index · Search · New user · Who's Online FAQ · Calendar Astrophotography and Sketching >> Sketching Previous   Index   Next   Threaded   Pages: 1 Plan9 professor emeritus Reged: 01/28/08 Loc: Northern VA First couple of sketches (M3, M81)       #3073790 - 04/28/09 09:30 PM Attachment (62 downloads) Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Hi all, I had made up my mind some time ago to start sketching as a way to keep a log. Last couple of nights were beautiful here (t-shirt weather at midnight), so I felt inclined to give it a shot. I discovered: - it's hard to get the field stars where you want them (won't vouch for the accuracy of any of this) - it's hard to get the brightness of stars to correspond (but the scanner really exaggerated the contrast) - I should practice making round dots Cheers! Bill Post Extras:       Plan9 professor emeritus Reged: 01/28/08 Loc: Northern VA Re: First couple of sketches (M3, M81) [Re: Plan9]       #3073795 - 04/28/09 09:31 PM Attachment (52 downloads) Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   And M81: Post Extras:       Tommy5 Carpal Tunnel Reged: 03/28/04 Loc: Chicagoland Re: First couple of sketches (M3, M81) [Re: Plan9]       #3073953 - 04/28/09 10:59 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Very nice sketches, you must have reasonably dark skies , thanks for sharing.. Post Extras:       JayinUT I'm not Sleepy Reged: 09/19/08 Re: First couple of sketches (M3, M81) [Re: Plan9]       #3074129 - 04/29/09 01:29 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Bill, Nicely done sketches. One resource I have found helpful has been Jeremy's site Belt of Venus. It has some good links there to how to get some of these things down. One of the most helpful to me has been to divide the sketching circle into fourths and sketching what I see in that quarter portion I am working on before moving to another. Well done and positions are pretty close, close enough I can't tell the difference. Edited by JayinUT (04/29/09 10:17 AM) Post Extras:       frank5817 Postmaster Reged: 06/13/06 Loc: Illinois Re: First couple of sketches (M3, M81) [Re: JayinUT]       #3074162 - 04/29/09 01:57 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   These are both very nice sketches and provide a great record of exactly what you saw at the eyepiece on the dates of your sketches. I find these kinds of records better than just written descriptions. Frank Post Extras:       TenthEnemy scholastic sledgehammer Reged: 01/21/08 Loc: Maryland Re: First couple of sketches (M3, M81) [Re: frank5817]       #3074226 - 04/29/09 03:32 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Very nice, don't worry too much about star placement, it doesn't really matter once you are away from the eyepiece. I certainly can't tell if there's any inaccuracies. Round stars are easy, just place the pencil on the page and rotate it. Bright stars can either be larger or darker, but it doesn't look like you have a problem with this. Post Extras:       Plan9 professor emeritus Reged: 01/28/08 Loc: Northern VA Re: First couple of sketches (M3, M81) [Re: TenthEnemy]       #3074343 - 04/29/09 07:10 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Thanks all for the kind and helpful comments, everyone! Tommy, actually, the skies here aren't that dark (red zone), esp for the first sketch - I stared for a long time at each of these objects. A lot of those little stars seem to come out of the woodwork after a while. Some on this forum actually brighten up the background of their sketch to match the sky background; maybe that would also reduce the excessive contrast the scanner introduced. Frank, your comment is the reason I'm trying this - seems much better than just a text log. Bill Post Extras:       Jeff Young Post Laureate Reged: 08/04/05 Loc: Ireland Re: First couple of sketches (M3, M81) [Re: Plan9]       #3075350 - 04/29/09 04:07 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Bill -- Nicely done! I also noticed that my observing skills improved considerably when I started sketching -- a bonus on top of the much more information-packed (and presentable) record. Cheers, -- Jeff. Post Extras:       Pages: 1 Previous   Index   Next   Threaded   Extra information 0 registered and 5 anonymous users are browsing this forum. 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