Sketching on the eyepiece

Here are some new sketches that I did during my free time this week. Once again, these are open star clusters. Sadly, they seem to be the limit of my humble telescope when it comes to deep sky hunting. I tried hunting globular clusters twice but all I saw was a small round patch of light. I guess a 60mm telescope can't resolve globulars. But anyway, open clusters are fun too so I think its worth hunting anything that's available for the nights to come. The featured DSOs are the Pleiades Star Cluster and the M6 and M7 open star cluster using my custom made sketching template

Please click the image to enlarge.

Hosting a Public Stargazing Session

11 PM, April 4, 2010

While on vacation and observing one night on the church where I stayed, a group of altar servers came up and saw me observing. Curious, they asked if they could have a look and they began touching the telescope and peeking through it. However, the children were also scheduled to serve on a particular church celebration for one hour so I told them to return after their service and I'll let them see the moon and Saturn. So I quickly moved to another location to set up and host a little stargazing or shall I say, moon and Saturn gazing session for the enthusiastic children.

The feeling of hearing their "oohs" and "aahs" gave me so much joy that evening. It is truly wonderful to share the beauty of the cosmos with other people, especially children (in my case, I love children). Even with such humble equipment, I am proud that I was able to give them a good time and a closer glimpse at the world beyond ours.

The experience was truly wonderful and memorable - I cannot express how happy I am when I saw and heard their reactions upon seeing the moon and saturn. It makes me want to do more public stargazing sessions in the future especially in remote places where children only see the cosmos through books and hear them in stories of their teachers. I did this impromptu stargazing session somewhere in General Trias, Cavite ( a little town called Javalera, the home of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church where I was staying for the Holy week). I think I did my part in the Global Astronomy Month and in sharing the beauty of the heavens through a telescope to other people. For more details about the Global Astronomy Month, visit this:

http://www.astronomerswithoutborders.org/index.php/projects/global-astronomy-month.html

Here are some photographs taken with a 1.3 megapixel mobile phone camera without proper lighting around so the images are quite dark and grainy. A small LED lamp was used to give some illumination.

Equipment used :

60mm - f/15 achromatic refractor
2x Barlow Lens and 90 degree diagonal
Salvaged Binocular Eyepiece

A group picture

My first sketches

While observing one night, I decided to sketch the objects that I have selected for the night. Its a fun and fulfilling way to record and file my observations (for me). Its hard estimating the magnitudes and distances between stars and how to put them on paper altogether. But I think I did a good job for my first time ^_^

Note : Click to enlarge image

Here's a sketch of the famous Orion Nebula


M44 Open star Cluster

The M41 Open star cluster


Here's a sketch of sun spots via solar projection method.This time, I used my custom made sketching template.