DEEP SKY SKETCHING at The Eyepiece of a Telescope.
You will need a torch, a suitable drawing pad and pencils.
Loose sheets of paper will tend to blow about in the wind and may well get dropped and trodden on. A spirally bound
A5 artists pad is practical at the eyepiece and yet can still be used for permanent reference.
Early sketches can be referred to at the telescope if necessary. Most observers seem to select the wrong grade
of pencil for deep sky sketching. A 2B (on the soft side of HB) is best for writing the notes and drawing the field
stars and a 4B (even softer) for the nebulae etc. Recording the details of say the Dumbbell nebulae in Vulpecula
with a hard 4H pencil would become increasingly difficult as your paper softens in the damp night air. It is necessary
to remember that as you are drawing black on white and the brightest areas are the darkest on your sketch, looks
like a photographic negative print.
Finally you will want to smudge the nebulous areas. Don't use your fingers, that will only result in graphite getting
everywhere, instead use an artists stub. This is a pencil sized tube of paper like a tightly rolled piece of blotting
paper.
Use the stub in conjunction with a soft 4B pencil. The pencil is used to record the outline of the nebulae and
the stub is used to smudge the pencil line to a smooth and even shading. A little practice before use at the telescope
will help. For correcting mistakes, a soft eraser will be far better than a harder one. All these items are obtainable
from an artists shop or a good stationers.
Planetary and Lunar observers have a standard scale for their drawings. For example, Venus is drawn with a diameter
of 50mm. Deep sky observers, if left to their own resources want to draw the object to the same scale as they see
it in the eyepiece. Please RESIST this temptation, and draw the object as large as possible. Guidelines are difficult
to give as the objects that you observe are of vastly different sizes. The exact size is not important, but to
draw it at a large scale is. You will find once you start recording your observations at a reasonable scale you
will find it necessary to look for more detail through the eyepiece. To start your sketch, first find the orientation
of your field of view, that is, the direction of North, and mark this on your diagram. Next draw in the brightest
stars you can see in the field of view around the object. You can then use these as a framework for your sketch.
Draw in the brighter parts with your soft pencil, then the fainter stars with the harder 2B pencil. Ensure that
you include the essential observing details: the time UT (universal time,GMT), the date, telescope or binoculars
aperture, magnification and observing conditions. Don't forget to add notes to your sketches if you are uncertain
of some of the details. Once indoors, you can re-draw your sketches in a more presentable form if you wish. For
display purposes you may find it interesting to use a white pencil on black paper, but I would hesitate to use
this technique at the telescope. By recording your observations on paper outside, you will gain more, as you will
feel obliged to look harder for details for the sake of your drawing.
Satisfaction can be gained by showing your results to other observers. Give it a try it will be fun, whatever your artistic ability.
Good Observing, Clear Skies John.