M42 early December

M42 December 3rd 2007 00:53 UT - 01:45 UT Wicklow Ireland 200mm Reflector FL 1200mm/ 15mm GSO wideview eyepiece/ Pastels/Gel Pen/Blending stick. Seeing 3- 4 Transparency good, broken street light. South is up
After a day of stormy winds and heavy rain the atmosphere seemed cleaner and more settled than usual.
I had sketched Holmes for the last time, and turned my scope to the magnificent sword of Orion. M42 is a favorite of mine, I intend to sketch it in increasingly bigger scopes this winter. The nebulous star forming clouds seemed to be very linear that evening. From my garden it was one of the best views of it, I had ever seen. It was very cold just around 2 degrees, with a chilling wind, flapping my sketch pad and freezing my fingers.

Deirdre Kelleghan
www.deirdrekelleghan.com
Irish Astronomical Society

Deirdre,

I admire your strength to sketch under challenging temperatures. M42 and the trapezium are a real treat to observe. With my C14 (now out of commission) I used to test the night's seeing by turning it towards the trapezium so as to see how many members were visible and thereby assess the quality of the sky at the time.

Something you may wish to pursue is the variability of one of the members of the trapezium. I will have to research it further as to which member but one of the member stars is quite variable and I do not have my reference handy due to a hard disk failure in June/2007.

Good work!

Very nice sketch Deirdre. Always a pleasure to view.

Great sketch and report Dee.

Now, if only you had applied a little less unsharp mask and DDP, oh and mabey tweak the curves and levels a little....oh, and mabey do an RGB next time eh!

Seriously, nice range of contrast there. You'll have to pop down here again and try it in the 16". M42 isn't too high so you can leave the ladder at home!