NGC 6231 SKETCH.

NGC 6231 Sketch, 25 May 2019.

I had some clear skies Friday night the 25th May 2019 and decided to do a sketch of NGC 6231.

NGC 6231 Open cluster in Scorpius.
Magnitude +2.59
Orion XT 8 and 15mm eyepiece.
Black A5 Sketch paper.
White pastel pencils.
Moon at 56.8% illuminated approximately 7 degrees above horizon.
NGC 6231 lies at an approximate distance of 5,900 light years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
It was first discovered by the astronomer Giovanni Batista Hodierna in 1654. It was later also cataloged by Edmund Halley(1678), Philippe Loys De Cheseaux(1745-46) and Abbe Lacaille(1751-52).

This sketch was also a chance to try something fun and new.
Rather than only present just the original sketch I wanted to have some fun and inject some digital magic into the sketch. A way to make dull open cluster sketch come to life.

Once I had photographed the original sketch I put that into Star tools and did a crop and a bin on the image. From there I used the heal module to round up and tighten the stars a bit.
Then I used various star mask combinations to artificially colour the stars, from there I added the star spikes for effect.
The final product seems to leap off the page at you and is almost 3D, well to my eye anyhow, you decide.

First image is the original sketch itself.

Then the second image is how it turned out after the star rounding and tightening up.

And then the final image after all the dazzle had been applied.

I hope you have enjoyed this sketch and it's digital development as much as I did!

NGC 4755, The Jewel Box, Sketch.

Saturday May 11 2019.

I had some nice clear sky and felt the time was ripe for a sketch.
The naked eye limiting magnitude on the night was around 4. In the sketch itself the stars are down to the 9th magnitude using the 25/15 and 9mm eyepieces from a light polluted urban backyard in Durban, South Africa.

The Sketch is done with white pastel pencil on A5 black sketch paper.
The image has had the labels added in photoshop and the edges of the image cropped ever so slightly, so as you can see the sketch fills almost the entire A5 page.
I spent a roughly a hour on the sketch, I was careful to try get the stars well plotted and I think I got pretty close.  The orientation is that as seen in the eyepiece at the time. Sadly the sketch does not convey the colours in the stars that give it it's name. Maybe a Photoshop project at a later point.

NGC 4755 is a well known and viewed Southern Sky object in the southern constellation of Crux, also known as the Southern Cross.
The cluster was first discovered by the astronomer Nicholas Louis de Lacaille during his visit to South Africa from 1751-1752.
John Herschel described the cluster as "A casket of variously coloured precious stones", hence the name "The Jewel Box".

And here is my humble attempt at this open cluster.

NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK 13-19 MAY 2019.

Night Sky This Week 13-19 May 2019.

Already approaching the middle of May, the days seem to fly by. I have had several nights of clear sky the last week, this is to be expected with the Winter skies over Durban. Let's hope the trend continues. Especially now that we get to gaze into the heart of the Milky Way as it arcs high overhead.

So let's take a look at what to expect from your Southern night skies for this coming week.

MOON AND PLANETS.

The Moon is at quarter phase and will be ramping up to the full phase by Saturday the 18th.
It will also be a "Blue Moon", usually there are three full Moon's during each of Earth's seasons but occasionally there is a fourth, when this happens the third full Moon for that season is called the Blue Moon since the first,second and fourth are already assigned traditional names. These Blue Moons occur once every 2.7 years.
So, there you have it, "Once in a blue Moon!"

The Planets are once again plentiful and early risers here in the Southern Skies so plenty to see.

The Early Evening Planets.
First up is Mars(Planet in Taurus), it has a short window from dusk before it sinks below your western horizon shortly after 7PM.
Jupiter(Planet in Ophiuchus) starts to rise just before 8PM and Saturn(Planet in Sagittarius) follows suit by 10PM
The Early Morning Planets.
Neptune(Planet in Aquarius) starts to rise shortly before 2 AM and is a telescope only planet.
Then we see Venus about two hours before dawn as it slowly starts to move back toward the Sun.

DEEP SKY OBSERVING(DSO).

We have a ever brightening Moon starting to dominate our night sky, so back to Open Clusters(OC).
We take a look at two easy targets in NGC 6405 and IC 4665.

NGC 6405, Messier 6, Open Cluster in Scorpius, Magnitude +4.19.

The OC is included the the famous Charles Messier catalogue where it is designated as M6. It is also known as the butterfly cluster after Burnham described it as a charming arrangement of stars that appear as a butterfly with open wings.
The cluster lies at a distance of 1600light years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
The cluster itself consists of 80 stars spread over a 54 arc minute area.
It should be a easy star hop away from the nearby naked eye star Lambda Scorpii in the constellation Scorpius.

IC 4665, Open cluster in Ophiuchus, Magnitude +4.19.

This cluster was first discovered by the Swiss astronomer Phillippe Loys de Dheseaux in 1745.
It is missing from the NGC catalogue and is a rather large, open and coarse cluster with 30 stars.
It is however easily seen in binoculars and wide field scopes.
The cluster lies about 1300 light years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus.
It is a easy star hop from the close by naked eye star Beta Ophiuchi.

Image from Cartes Du Ceil.

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION(ISS).

This week will see a few early evening passes, the table below shows the dates and times for Durban and is taken from the "Spot the station" website, a link to the webpage is under the "Useful Links" tab in the right hand column of this blog. There you can find the dates and times for your city or town.

Date	Visible	Max Height	Appears	Disappears	Share Event
Fri May 10, 6:13 PM	2 min	15°	10° above S	15° above SSE
Sat May 11, 6:58 PM	2 min	29°	10° above SW	29° above SW
Sun May 12, 6:07 PM	5 min	39°	10° above SSW	23° above E
Mon May 13, 6:55 PM	2 min	25°	23° above WNW	16° above N
Tue May 14, 6:02 PM	6 min	57°	10° above SW	10° above NNE
Thu May 16, 6:00 PM	1 min	16°	16° above NW	10° above NNW
Thu May 23, 5:28 AM	6 min	32°	10° above NNW	10° above ESE

So get out there under the night skies and look up!

NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK 6 MAY TO 12 MAY 2019.

Night Sky This Week 6 May to 12 May 2019.

Winter is now making itself felt here in the Southern Hemisphere with cooler evenings and some clearer skies. In the last week I managed two nights observing, reports to follow later.
Here in Durban we usually have clear Winter nights although climate change has brought more clouds in the last two Winter seasons. Let's hope for better skies this Winter.
So let's take a look at what we can expect from the night skies in the coming week.

The images are taken from SkSafari 6 Pro and Carted Du Ceil, links to both webpages are under the "Useful Links" tab in the right column of this blog.

MOON AND PLANETS.

The Moon will slowly start creeping back into our night skies this week and will be at first quarter on Sunday the 12th when it will set by midnight.
Down south we have plenty of planets to take a look at.
Mars is the first early evening planet that can found in the constellation Taurus in your North Western skies just after dusk were it will be visible for a short period before it sinks below the horizon.
Jupiter starts to rise shortly after 7PM with Saturn following along after 9PM.
Looking at our early morning planets, Neptune rises a little after 2AM and is only visible in the scope.
Then we see Venus, Uranus(Telescope only) and Mercury all showing up just before dawn.

THE ETA AQUARIDS METEOR SHOWER.

This meteor shower is associated with the periodic comet 1P/Halley. We see these in the first week of may.
The meteor shower can peek at a rate of 1 per minute, but this will be a under dark clear skies, the shower radiant appears in the constellation of Aquarius hence the name.
They are best seen in the early hours just before dawn, look for the constellation Aquarius in your North Eastern skies.

Image from SkySafari 6 Pro

DEEP SKY OBSERVING(DSO).

This week I have picked out two easy targets. Both sit close to the stars Theta Scorpii and Eta Scorpii make for a easy star hop from there.
We will take a look at a open cluster(OC) and a globular cluster(GC).

NGC 6322, Open Cluster in Scorpius, Magnitude +6.00.

A easy star hop from Eta Scorpii, this cluster lies at a distance of 3249 light years from Earth. The cluster has a few 9th magnitude stars that stand out well with a sprinkling more in the 10-14th magnitude.
While the cluster itself is not very remarkable it is framed by a triangle of 7th magnitude stars in HD 156189(7.6), HD 156292(7.5) and HD 156234(7.7) and that gives it a pleasing visual aspect, especially at lower magnifications.

NGC 6388, Globular Cluster in Scorpius, Magnitude +6.71.

Another easy star hop from the star Theta Scorpii, this GC is at a distance of 32,600 light years from the Earth and 10,400 from the galactic center.
NGC 6388 was first discovered by James Dunlop on the 13th May 1826 using a 9 inch reflector telescope.
This is  a nice bright and compact globular cluster that holds up well to magnification.

Image from Cartes Du Ceil

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION(ISS).

This week we see three passes late in the week, all early evenings. The table below is from the "Spot the station" website, a link to the website is under the "Useful links" tab in the right hand column of this blog.
So get out there and catch the station is it passes high overhead.

Image courtesy of NASA.

Date	Visible	Max Height	Appears	Disappears	Share Event
Fri May 10, 6:13 PM	2 min	15°	10° above S	15° above SSE
Sat May 11, 6:58 PM	2 min	29°	10° above SW	29° above SW
Sun May 12, 6:07 PM	5 min	39°	10° above SSW	23° above E

Enjoy the week ahead and get out under the stars and look up!