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March 2021 Sketching Contest Winner: Messier 63 Galaxy by Ivan Maly


March 2021 Sketching Contest Winner: Messier 63 Galaxy by Ivan Maly

Messier 63 also known as the sunflower galaxy is located in Canes Venatici between Messier 51 and the alpha star Cor Caroli.
Fuzzy objects are HII regions/OB associations in the galaxy.
Observed and sketched: March 13, 2021
Location: remote ridge, 700 m. above sea level in Pennsylvania
Equipment: 20-inch Newtonian, 100 deg. oculars
Magnification: 150 and 250x, combined view
Technique: black paper, white pencils, tortillon, completed at the telescope. Touched up the next day (stars refreshed and some eraser work on the galaxy).
Conditions: transparency 9/10, seeing 4 arcsec, sky 21.85 mag/sq. arcsec. North up in sketch


    • Daniel Mounsey, Joe Bergeron, Poochpa and 11 others like this

    There is something luminescent about good sketches such as this, this captures the realism of what is seen at the eyepiece. Very nice job!

    Yes very nice indeed. Almost photographic .. keep up the good work and thank you for sharing .
    Beautiful sketch, well done. Congratulations!
    Photo
    AstroPotamus
    Apr 10 2021 04:19 PM

    So every time I see something like this, two things go through my mind:

     

    1)  How long does it take to make something like this?

     

    2)  What sort of equipment and training (and talent) does it take?

     

    I can barely draw stick figures that aren't suffering from rickets, and my circles are always eccentric.  So I've stuck with sketching sunspots, since my old eyes can see the big ball of gas pretty well.  The night sky is really only mostly accessible to my eyes via AP, but I have this really nice sketchbook I'd like to be using....

     

    Oh, and FANTASTIC work!




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