Sun - now you are just showing off...

Sol – Oh, now you are just showing off…

In the way that no two people are the same in appearance, solar prominences are not the same in appearance.  And with an instrument like the Daystar Quark Prominence model, the subtle nuances can be picked up – the puffy extensions, the frayed columns, the tenuous tendrils connecting components.  All this serves to make chasing prominences a favourite of mine.

I had the opportunity to chase proms on the 21^st and 25^th.  What the Sun threw up on both days was just gorgeous.  It would be easy to lump the proms on display as just Hedgerow and anomalous proms and leave it at that.  But the truth is, the structures within these were so unique, beautiful and even had earthly elements, just to lump them with only a clinical title is just insufficient.

21^st April

“Anomalous prominences” is the title given to proms that don’t fit within the limited descriptive catalogue of prom types.  These anomalous proms can be extraordinarily beautiful, big and even have the appearance of things like hands, chimneys or trees.  Often too they are magnetically connected with other proms and features that push and pull on them.

This day there were several different prom types all close together on the solar limb.  Hedgerow proms that looked like distant bushfire smoke plumes.  Small detached proms floated over the surface.  Inclined spikes reached over to form platform proms, bridging with other features.  Pyramid proms that looked like Christmas trees.  And an anomalous prom that had the appearance of dormant deciduous tree, with skeletal naked branches reaching out and up from the single trunk.  One of these branches morphed into an extension of an inclined platform prom.

This is where the Daystar Quark comes into its own.  Being the Prominence model, it is finely tuned to allow for the softest of prom details to been noticeable.  Photographs tend to washout the softest of details.  And it is only with the constant observation that comes with my sketching that most of these details slowly show themselves.

Object:  Sol with miscellaneous proms

Scope & Gear:  ED80, 25mm Pl, Daystar Quark, 101X

Date: 21^st April, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

25^th April

Today on show were several regions of proms on display around the Sun.  The one the captured my attention to sketch was a broad segment with and exquisite hedgerow display, anomalous proms and pillar proms.

The complex structures within the Hedgerow were sensational.  Tendrils of plasma reaching across, over and beneath each other.  Plumes of material puffing out into angle-breath soft faint before disappearing into space.  Even a pillar prom sneaked in between the plumes.  The anomalous prom had its own complexity in structure, resembling a pyramid prom, but more of a complex pair of inclined pillars.  The disc along the limb also showed some swirling structures too.

When I finished this segment, I re-examined the other prom areas.  These were proving to be gorgeous on their own merits too, they beckoned me to sketch them.  I noticed that the way I structured my initial sketch I had a big empty area above the segment that I saw that I could include smaller segments to depict these proms.  And in the end, the whole finished sketch resembles a smilie face! :)

Object:  Sol with various prom regions

Scope & Gear:  ED80, Hyperion Zoom @ 20mm, Daystar Quark, approx. 126X

Date:  25^th April, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

Media:  Soft pastels and charcoal on A4 size black paper.

Pythagoras and surrounds

Hi all,

A couple of nights ago the Moon was just shy of being full.  Such a phase means that the terminator is very close to the Moon’s limb, and all the craters are therefore very foreshortened.  It is a situation that can provide some stunning drama to the scenery, and presents some challenges to depict that a more square crater doesn’t have.

Seeing this night was pretty good.  A brief scan of the terminator showed some wonderful sketch candidates.  What I settled on was Pythagoras and the surrounding Moonscape. 

For me, the biggest technical challenge I have with these foreshortened craters is the foreshortening itself.  Get the proportions too wrong, and the rest of the sketch balloons out of proportion.  Too deep, and all the craters become bloated.  Too thin, and everything becomes overly stumpy.

Another interesting aspect about sketching features close to the limb is that details are much, much finer due to the foreshortening.  The tiny craters are all still there.  So to the terraced inner and outer walls of large craters.  As are the riles and valleys.  But these tend to hide at first from view due to the additional glare.  But with time, these features slowly become more apparent, and a once seemingly bland Moonscape is littered with as much detail as a face on crater.  And then you need to foreshorten these too!...

This sketch I started with some trepidation.  But as it progressed I eased into foreshortening mode.  And now, when I look back onto this sketch, the drama and stark features make me pause for a moment and think to myself – “Geeze, did I really lay that sketch down!  WOW!”

I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I do.  I don’t sketch much features close to the limb.  I’m going to have to rectify this.

Alex.

Object:  Crater Pythagoras and surrounds

Scope:  C8, 8” SCT

Gear:  8mm LVW, 250X

Date:  20^th April, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

Media:  White and grey soft pastel, charcoal and white ink on A4 size black paper.

Aristoteles keeps on teaching

Hello everyone,

At long last I’ve managed a lunar sketch again!  As things would have it, two nights and two sketches!

I didn’t have things all my way.  The first sketch was of Lacus Mortis, and it was poetically killed off early…

One thing that I enjoy doing that is part of my sketching ‘process’ is looking up atlases and information about the area that I’ve sketched.  Often when deciding upon a particular feature to sketch, there has been something peculiar about that feature that has caught my attention and imagination.  And often in my research, I come to have my suspicions justified with amazing revelations.  And sometimes, just sometimes, the most amazing and unexpected details.  Lacus Mortis proved to be one of these exciting revelations, despite clouds rolling in to kill off the sketch session early.

Lacus Mortis, the Lake of Death, is an ancient feature.  It was created early in the Moon’s history when the crust was very thin.  A giant asteroid crashed into the thin crust, and instead of forming a crater as we know it, but the entire basin was flooded.  Lacus Mortis is not unique in this way.  All the Maria we see today all have this essentially round circumference and completely flooded basin.  What distinguishes Lacus Mortis form other ‘seas’ is the fractures and faults that crisscross it.

These fractures and faults all have a curious point of convergence – the centrally located crater, Burg.  Burg is also an ancient feature, though much younger than providence of Lacus Mortis.  The floor of Burg is only partially flooded, giving a hint that the Moon was cooler when Burg was formed that the crust was thicker.

Now, while sketching Burg, I noticed something strange about the inside of its wester side.  There appeared to be another wall inside the western rim.  It somewhat looked like the rim had somehow detached, but the rim looked too intact to be damaged.  But seeing was not good enough to allow for more magnification or resolution of this curious feature.

When I looked up Lacus Mortis on Virtual Moon Atlas, the anomaly that I had spotted became apparent.  This ‘detached wall is actually a gigantic set of volcanic domes!

There are a few clues to the origins of this anomalous internal structure of Burg.  You’ll notice that it does not follow the concentric nature of the remnant terraces.  Another distinguishing feature is this area is made up of darker material than the surrounding material.  And a third distinguishing feature we garner from Earth based volcanic domes, like Mt St Helens’ multiple domes inside its massive caldera.

Burg’s isolated location inside Lacus Mortis and lack of significant later impact damage has meant that much of its original ejecta material ray structures have been preserved.  That this ray system is no longer brilliantly while like Copernicus or Tyco is evidence of the solar wind weathering that occurs on the lunar surface.  A large impact on the Moon throws up material that is from deeper layers under the surface, and its appearance is much brighter.  Though there is no atmosphere or weather or water to cause erosion, weathering occurs as the radiation and solar wind from the sun causes changes in the chemical composition of these fresher material that has been thrown up, causing it to darken.  The brilliant ray system of Copernicus and Tyco will also eventually darken and lose its brilliance.

Lacus Mortis’ riles and fault lines are extensive and massive.  One particular fault line rival Rupes Recta for the vertical height differential between the two sections.  This particular fault line runs north-south in the south-western quadrant.  The shadow that is cast westwards is so long, suggesting the massive height differential.

I so wanted to include the surround mountain ranges and peripheral structures around Lacus Mortis, but clouds rolled in, somewhat appropriately killing off the sketching session.

Object:  Lacus Mortis

Scope:  C8, 8” SCT

Gear:  8mm LVW, 250X

Date:  13^th April, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

Media:  White and grey soft pastels, charcoal & white ink on A4 size black paper.

The following night I had a second chance for a sketch.  Aristoteles beckoned this time.

Aristoteles is roughly of a similar age and many similar features as Burg.  It lies on the tortured southern shore of Mare Frigoris.  Its floor is only partially flooded – there are smaller craters around Aristoteles that are ghost craters – totally flooded with only the barest of the original rim still showing.  It has also been spared damage from large subsequent impacts.  Also like Burg, much of the remnant ray system structures have been preserved, though now weathered and no longer brilliantly white.

Aristoteles though share one feature with a much younger, though just as massive impact that formed Copernicus.  Surrounding Copernicus is an extensive system of secondary impacts that were formed from the material that had been thrown out from the original impact.  Aristoteles also shares an extensive collar of secondary impacts.  Differentiating Aristoteles and Burg’s collars apart of these secondary impacts is the very extensive within the ray system of Burg.  Many of these secondary impacts are co-linear, radiating out from the centre of Burg, accentuating the appearance & depth of the ray system.  Aristoteles secondary impacts are much further reaching, attesting to the much larger impact that formed Aristoteles.

One interesting feature around Aristoteles is the ancient, flooded & highly damaged crater Mitchell, immediately on Aristoteles eastern rim.  My sketch shows that the western rim of Mitchell has been obliterated by Aristoteles, and its eastern rim is irregular.  Photographs of Mitchell show that its eastern rim has been filled in by material that had been thrown out from the impact that created Aristoteles.

To the south of Aristoteles is the large crater Exudous.

Object:  Aristoteles & surrounds

Scope:  C8, 8” SCT

Gear:  8mm LVW, 250X

Date:  14^th April, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

Media:  White & grey soft pastel, charcoal and white ink on A5 size black paper

2 Lions

Hi all,

I was lucky enough to get the chance to get the solar scope out again.  This time, my eye was drawn to a rather regal display between two prominences.

These two proms were next to each other, and interacting.  Plasma material was seen being cast between the two, and above them.  The spectacle somewhat resembled two lions fighting, with their manes and dust flying everywhere.  The reality is probably even more terrifying, as the plasma is many thousands of degrees in temperature, and being flung up, down and around at many thousands of kilometers an hour, through magnetic fields that would see your compass spin itself into oblivion.

The immediate view through my Daystar Quark was gorgeous.  But as my eye adapted to the red image, my gaze picked up more and more detail.  The reach of faint material kept on reaching further and further out.  The softest of tendrils revealed themselves.  And the complex structures were fascinating to see.  This is why sketching is so appealing to me - with time and patience, these softest and delicate of details become apparent, instead of steamrolling over the whole lot with just a token look.

Either side of these two Lions were smaller proms, and a sunspot with filaments and plages that were soon to disappear over the limb of the Sun.

Object:  Sol, anomalous, pyramid & pillar prominences, sunspot, plages & filaments
Scope & Gear:  ED80, Daystar Quark & SolarMax II 60 DS, approx 112X
Date:  5th April 2016
Location:  Sydney, Australia
Media:  Colour soft pastels & charcoal on A5 size black paper.

Alex.

Best of both worlds

Hi all,

It has been quite some time since my last entry.  My apology for my absence.  Work, family life, weather, again conspiring against me.

Today I took the opportunity to sketch the sun following the prompting from a mate that a big arch prominence was on show.

By the time I set up my Daystar Quark, the arch had developed into a massive detached arch, resembling a floating fire above the solar limb.

Either side of the detached arch were other smaller, but just as detailed proms.  One of these was interacting with the detached prom, with gossamer soft tendrils of material reaching across between the two.

On the opposite side of the Sun, there was another fascinating set of prominences on display.  Most stark was a massive inclined pyramid prom – which had a surprise in store for me…  This pyramid was a massive structure, likely rivalling the height of the detached arch on the other side.  Going clockwise from the pyramid, immediately beside and sitting beneath the overhanging peak, a lovely platform prom busied itself, trying its best to ignore its colossal neighbour.  Further down clockwise was another platform prom, though larger and more ‘untidy’ in structure.  AND a little further on clockwise again was a little pairing of a pillar and fork proms reaching across to each other.

I recently picked up a SolarMax II 60, with a damaged additional double stack unit.  The damaged unit is useable, and not dangerous to use (the internal etalon would take care of that), but the image is not uniformly illuminated, with a ‘zonal band’ cutting through the FOV where the double stack effect really pops out.  I set up the SolarMax,  and what an extraordinary Chromosphere appeared!

 The lone sunspot inside from the larger platform prom was distinctly arachnid in appearance.  Plages radiated out accompanied by masses of fibrils.  Just in from the pyramid was a curious set of four filament waves!  I’m actually not sure what the geometric description would be!  And the pyramid prom showed itself not to be a limb structure, but starting from inside of the limb – a forked filament reached out from the chromosphere forming the base structure of the colossal pyramid, reaching out through the limb of the Sun.  Quite a spectacular structure.

The area next to the massive detached arch also had a fabulously long filament reach across the disc, to kiss the lower set of smaller proms.

The difference in capability between the Daystar Quark and the SolarMax is quite stark.  Each has their own unique strength, and together they make for an amazing set of observing opportunities.

Alex Massey.

An extraordinary two days with the Sun

Hi all,

I had the opportunity of some time with the Sun over two days.  And a most extraordinary shows the Sun put up on these two occasions!

On the 29^th of January, there was a tremendous amount of prominence activity visible, two distinct sunspot areas, and a lot of filaments and plages.  It really was a smorgasbord of features to choose from.

I settled on a quadrant that had a wonderful assortment of prominences and a sunspot region that was very close to this limb.  Littering this limb were spicules, inclined proms, broken arch proms, tree proms (which are pyramid proms that have been displaced laterally), and mound proms.  It was quite a rich display of prominence varieties.

The sunspot that was close by was surrounded by an amazing amount of filaments and plages.  The more I looked, the more detail I could make out.  It was an exercise in throwing around different eyepieces and stopping down the aperture to find the best combination of EP, scope and Quark that brought out the best results.  And with conditions being quite reasonable for mid-summer, it was a fabulous chance to push the Quark filter.

A hero that popped up was a 13mm Hyperion eyepiece that I haven’t used for some time.  I’ve modified it to make it a better optical match with my fast Newtonians by swapping its Smythe field lens with a barlow.  Works very well this way.  But with the swapping of field lens, there is a change in focal length, closer to 17mm, and a wider AFOV over 70°.  I considered using it with my Quark as I remembered that it is possible to remove the field lens altogether and you end up with another eyepiece, in this case a 23mm eyepiece.  I ended up swapping between the two focal lengths of this Hyperion eyepiece.

Object:  Variety of proms, sunspots, filaments and plages

Scope:  ED80 f/7.5

Gear:  modified 13mm Hyperion, Daystar Quark, 148X

Date:  29^th January, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia

The second chance came on the last day of January.  The forecast was for overcast conditions, but it unexpectedly cleared up.  So, quickly grab the scope and Quark!

WOW!  What an apparition was waiting for me – a HUGE Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) was hovering just apparently detached from the surface!

I have been wanting to view one of these spectacular ejections, but it was always going to be a lottery, pot luck, chance, fluke, culo, or just plain lucky to see one.  And it happened!

Adding to the spectacle was a variety of prominences.

The CME was floating above the surface, being held in place and pushed and pulled by enormous magnetic fields.  Streamers of plasma swirled, plunged and soared right before my eyes.  This feature was changing so quickly.

I ran inside to call the kids out to have a look.  The first remark from each was ‘WOW!’.  I told them to slow down and take their time, and they also saw the streamers of material shooting around.  I got as much a buzz from their excitement as I did from the view from the eyepiece.

What is staggering is when one begins to fathom the distances being covered by this material, it is truly astonishing.

Object:  Coronal Mass Ejection and various prominences

Scope:  ED80 f/7.5

Gear:  32mm Plossl, Daystar Quark, 79X

Date:  31^st January, 2016

Location:  Sydney, Australia.

I hope you enjoy these pieces.

Alex.

Inspiration and Experience

Hi all,

Finally, a clear dark site night!  And I got to spend it with my best mate – my son!

We headed up to Katoomba Airfield on Sunday afternoon.  The clear sky over Sydney started to cloud over to thunder clouds the higher up the range we got.  But this was a typical afternoon storm that often happens in summer, rips in, pours, blows and roars, and is all over in 5 min.  And the rest of the evening is crystal clear.

My son had his little 114mm scope that I made a table top dobbie mount for.  With a stable mount, as a first telescope it is a fantastic little instrument for a child.  He quickly got the hang of using both eyes when using the red dot finder, and revelled in bringing up a target and telling me he found it so quickly.

His nine years struggle with the sheer size of the numbers involved with light years, and the concept of hundreds of thousands of years, and millions of years it takes for light to cover such vast distances.  His immediate world revolves around moments and hours through to agonizing days.  But 50 million years, well, most people struggle with that one…

His nine year old eyes also put my eyes to shame.  He counted 8 stars in the Pleiades naked eye!  I can only see 6.  And didn’t he take glee in that!!!

But he is still only nine, and the Sandman finally wore him out.  Then it was my time to play…

Conditions were not crash hot.  Seeing was only so-so, and transparency was challenged with the high humidity due to a long spell of recent wet weather.  What to sketch in these conditions was a task.  The Horsehead nebula was visible, but with the poor transparency it was not as distinct as it can be.  And other objects I considered would take too long and I was feeling fatigued after a long day.

Then a memory came to me of a photo I had seen in an astro shop in Sydney over a year ago of a beautiful galaxy, taken by a customer of the store.  The spectacular ‘Meathook’ galaxy in Volans.  This was the inspiration I required! It is an intriguing barred spiral with its arms tidally disrupted by an encounter with another galaxy a long time ago.  And these disrupted arms can be seen in a telescope of sufficient aperture.  Being located so far south, it has missed being place in the Arp catalogue of unusual galaxies, where it would most certainly be better known and explored.

The Meathook has a curious two consecutive NGC number designation, 2442 & 2443.  This comes from its discoverer, John Herschel, seeing its curious asymmetrical shape and believing it to be two separate nebulae.  We take it for granted today what galaxies are, but before the 1920’s, galaxies were thought to be nebulae.  The concept of galaxies being islands of billions of stars is a relatively recent one.  So the Meathook gives us a unique insight to what the universe was thought to be and the evolution of astronomy as a science.

This Sunday night, with the less than ideal conditions, the Meathook demanded all my observational experience, all my observing tricks, and a plunge into my eyepiece kit to find that one eyepiece that would give me the best visual image.

As all my dobs are push-pull, I was constantly nudging the 17.5” beast at 200X magnification.  This was a good thing, as this had my eyes constantly being refreshed by the moving image, making visible those faintest of details that a static image loses.

Just above 2442, another more distant galaxy can be spied out, PGC 21457.

It was great to be able to land a galaxy that I was introduced to by a photo a year before.  And the image of the photo matched the spectacular appearance in the eyepiece.

Object:  NGC 2442/3

Scope:  17.5” Karee push-pull dob

Gear:  10mm XW, 200X

Location:  Katoomba Airfield, Australia,

Date:  11^th January, 2016

Media:  Soft pastel on black paper

The second sketch I managed also had the same set of inspiration and experience ingredients.  When I completed the sketch of the Meathook, the memory of a correspondence with a fellow amateur, Glen Cozens, was triggered.  Glen has a particular interest with the 19^th century astronomer James Dunlop, who discovered hundreds of objects in the early 19^th century from Parramatta, now a western suburb of Sydney.  Today, his work is commemorated with the listing of his discoveries as the ‘Dunlop Objects’.  I had asked Glen which of the Dunlop objects was his favourites, and I remembered he replied that NGC 1313 was one of them.

Dunlop 28 (its Dunlop designation) is a face-on spiral galaxy that is also known as a ‘starburst galaxy’.  This is because of the enormous amount of H2 regions that has been triggered caused by a recent encounter with another galaxy.  The gravitational tidal forces at play from this encounter has triggered a huge amount of star formation from the hydrogen gas and dust within the galaxy.  The gravitational tugs and pulls caused this gas and dust to become compressed.  This compression means an increase in mass density, and conversely an increase in the gravitational pull of these fronts, so attracting more gas and dust to the front, and eventually causing this gas and dust to coalesce into stellar formation regions, seen as bright pink areas in photographs of 1313.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is another starburst galaxy, whose massive stellar formation activity has been triggered by the gravitational influence of our Milky Way galaxy on this dwarf barred spiral galaxy.

The gravitational interruption it experienced long ago is seen by the irregular arm structure the galaxy has as it slowly recovers from this interruption.  As a result 1313 in my scope has a blotchy appearance.  These bright blotches are huge glowing h2 regions where a massive amount of star formation is happening.  Unlike most other barred spirals, 1313 also has a bright diffuse disk that fills in between its two main arms.  Stable barred spirals show next to no disk between the arms as material has been cleaned up into a more structured shape.  Adding to the allure of 1313 is that a faint spur can be seen coming off one of the arms, which points away from the disk, somewhat like a tag.   Recent ESO wide field photographs of 1313 show a massive amount of material that extends well beyond what we see as the disk.  This material more than triples the angular size of 1313!  The ‘spur’ that I saw in my scope is the brightest section of material that extends well beyond the immediate disk.

The Topsy Turvy galaxy is relatively close to our own Milky Way, being some 13 million light years from us.  As a result, an OIII filter can also be used on 1313 to bring out the H2 regions.  Unfortunately for me this night, high cloud had started forming and obscuring 1313 by the time I was ready to use an OIII filter.

The less than ideal viewing conditions had me draw on all my observing experience to patiently tease out details from 1313.  And this battle made the experience with 1313 so much more memorable!

Object:  NGC 1313, starburst barred spiral galaxy

Scope:  17.5” Karee push-pull dob

Gear:  10mm XW, 200X

Location:  Katoomba Airfield, Australia

Date:  11^th January, 2016

Media:  Soft pastel on black paper

I hope you enjoy these pieces.

Alex.