August 2011 - Roel

August 2011 Winner - Sketching Forum's Finalist - Roel
On August 2everything seemed to be right. The weather was absolutely great, the Sun was more active than I've seen so far this year and the seeing was above average. A good day to try sketching a full-disk h-alpha sun for the first time instead of an isolated prominence. First I made a blank disk with a soft white pastel. I took the sketch outside and filled in all the details I could see through the eyepiece of my 70mm solar telescope with white and black pastel pencils. All regions were very active, especially the middle one: it changed its shape within minutes. Sometimes little bright flare-like brightenings appeared and disappeared 2 minutes later. A wonderful sight! It took me one hour (from 08.00 UT - 09.00 UT) to complete the drawing. I scanned the (black&white) sketch and gave it a reddish color with Photoshop.
Sketch made from my backyard in Deventer, The Netherlands.