Telescope Reviews: M16-Footprints, the Earth, the Heavens

The series of sketches on the Eagle are listed below and range from the stellar neighborhood to the core. They are shown in an single album: Eagle Series of Sketches

The report for the series is below:

SKETCHES OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
1—unaided eyes, area “over” the “pitcher”, Aug 17
2—8 power, M24 region, the “neighborhood street light”, Aug 17
THE SKETCHES OF THE EAGLE NEBULA:
3—8 power with binocular, Aug 17
4--16 power with binocular, Aug 13
5--28 power with a 102mm refractor, Aug 13
6--46 power with a 80mm refractor MCHC+ astro-video camera, Aug 9
7--154 power with a 12.5 inch Dobsonian MCHC+ astro-video camera, Aug 9

OBSERVATION COMMENT
So many mistakes and notions occur because perspective is limited or context is not considered. One of the chief reasons so many instruments and methods of observing are pleasing is because they offer a variety of perspectives or fields of view or wavelength of observation. When we teach observing we encourage a vigorous observation but with more than one field of view on the same object because it illustrates the point by showing the beauty of an object in more than one way. With this in mind, I wanted to see a favorite object of my own in the southern skies but with at least 4 or 5 fields of view or methods. I chose the Eagle Nebula, M16.

With the eyes, the nearby famous star field punctuates the region but M16 (the Eagle) cannot really be detected. With a binocular the Eagle Nebula region comes alive as a bright patch among stars but is also close to the Swan—another patch of milky white. With a little more magnification and light gathering capacity, it’s a little patch of glitter in a milky spot all itself. With a little more magnification and a color chip on an astro-video camera to help grab the color, it becomes a huge field of reds and pinks with structure, a beautiful smattering of stars that includes an open cluster, and a central odd shaped black cloud with tentacles. With a little more magnification and the astro-video chip again, the core’s dark shape and the borders of both color and black (foreground stellar clouds) become pronounced. Yet, every view is beautiful. Seen together, they present contrasting views that, when added together, cause even more appreciation for the object.

THE LESSON
Likewise, multi-perspectives is what God presents in his response to Job to help him see the error of his thoughts and words, where his observations were too constrained by immediate but harsh circumstances. He temporarily lost sight of the greatness of God. I often do the same, until something strikes me about the magnitude of his creation that spans the breadth of the universe but also the next breath that I take. God runs the gamut in Job by speaking of seeing every man’s steps (Job 34:21), the water cycle that is critical to life on the thin area in which we live (Job 36:26-28), the measurement and creation of the earth (Job 38:4-7), and the beauty of the heavens (Job 38:31-33). So from the smallest footstep to the largest measurement and scene I can imagine, he causes different perspectives to be pondered at one time—to cause me to see the greatness of His way yet His attention to all things—even those things smaller than my footstep.

It was a good night to give thanks.

Sketching notes: No adjustments other than inverting the BXW sketches were made. The B&W sketches were with pencil or a charcoal pencil on white heavy paper that was sometimes combined with work on a rough sketch paper. The color sketches were pastels on black Artagain paper. Original sizes vary from 5x5 inch to 8x8 inches. Scanning was straight forward but was reduced to 120 dpi using a simple version of photoshop elements, which also has a routine to provide an adjustment of size for a web posting.

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Roland
Sketches in members galleries: rolandlinda3
Inspirational stories/sketches at:
www.christworksministries.org