Digital sketching with tablets or phones has great potential

I have been experimenting a bit with digital sketching. A long while back, I had purchased a Wacom pen tablet for the PC, and actually tried using that at the eyepiece to sketch. It was unwieldy to say the least, and I have not used it since. Most recently, with the addition of a generic Android tablet, and a smaller but versatile iPod, I've been doing digital sketches more and more. On both products, I use Sketch Book Mobile, and find the program fits my needs very well. They have a free version, but the pay-for version offers more tools, so I recommend that. 

I can easily see a few posts dedicated exclusively to sketching at the eyepiece using this product, and some techniques that I employ, but of now, I'll just share some of my most recent examples with you to show you that they are quite capable devices for sketching. 

First up, NGC 752, a nice open cluster in Andromeda I did earlier this year. Now for this particular example, I created a "template", basically a circle on a black background, on my PC and emailed it to myself so that I can save it on my Android tablet. I then simply opened this up using the sketch program (Sketch Book Mobile or SBM for short), and started with plotting of stars. Digital sketching permits you to easily and accurately capture subtle star colors, as noted by one of the prominent stars in this OC, which had a slight orange hue to it. 

Note that for some odd reason that I still don't know why, there seems to be some artifacts around the stars. Its odd, because I do not seem them on the tablet itself, or even on the PC for that matter, but when uploaded to Blogger or other sites, it becomes apparent. 

Next is M79, a globular cluster in the constellation Lepus. Now one of the great benefits to digital sketching is the ability to pinch-to-zoom. This, and the fact that SBM has a nice selection of tools that can make sketching certain objects a bit easier for amateur astronomers. For instance, globular clusters can be a challenging object to sketch. You need to relay the idea of molting, and some brighter clusters, depending on  the size of the scope your observing them with a the time of course, can even be resolvable to the core. With digital sketching, I pinch-to-zoom, make my pen tool the smallest possible size, and start tapping my screen to easily add lots of stars in the core, with just a hint of stars on the outer fringes of the globular cluster itself. If you make a mistake, just hit the undo button, and the program undo's the last change for as often as you hit the undo button.

M3, one of my favorite globular clusters, is located in the constellation Canes Venatici. Even in my moderately sized Meade LS8 ACF, at just 68x magnification, I can start to resolve this beautiful globular cluster. With the help of digital sketching, I think I was able to capture that quite well.

M53, a globular cluster that is relatively close to M3, but in the constellation Coma Berenices. This cluster did not have the large appearance as M3, and it was also not as resolvable as M3, but I could still make out a hint of resolvable stars at its outer edges. To me the smaller apparent diameter of this globular cluster gave the core a slightly brighter appearance then M3, but M3 was still overall brighter to me at the eyepiece.

NGC2360 is a nice open cluster in Canis Major. This cluster is also the very first object that Caroline Herschel independently discovered and cataloged, so way to go Caroline! This sketch was done on black paper, with a white chalk pen. I like chalk, it is softer then led, so I feel I have more control over how I convey the brightness of stars, and it's particularly nice for deep-sky objects as well, but it has the tendency to smudge. White gel pens are nice as well, but in the cold weather, the gel can be hard to tease out from the ballpoint, and I generally find myself tapping the pen a few times on the paper before I can get the flow back.

Sketching is a great way to capture and catalog your observations. Digital sketching has a lot of potential, and I'm sure you will see more from me on that in the coming months ahead. 

For more information on SketchBook Mobile, visit the Android Marketplace or the Apple App Store. 

Review - Dark Skies Apparel's Hooded Observing Vest

I must admit, I have never seen Dark Skies Apparel Observing Vests for myself, whether at a club event or star-party outing. After receiving one for the purpose of doing a review however, I have to say that I'm now surprised that I haven't seen them before, because they are a unique and quite beneficial astronomy accessory for every backyard stargazer.

So what is a hooded observing vest anyway?

The hooded observing vest is a piece of apparel that you wear when your at the eyepiece of your favorite telescope when your observing the night sky. It is especially made for amateur astronomers, with plenty of pockets to fit a variety of eyepieces and accessories. The hood is also unique, not just a traditional hood, but one that they describe as a "monk" style. Indeed, this over sized hood serves a very special purpose - to block stray light for the observer so that they can tease all of the detail possible from those faint fuzzies we all know and love, thus preserving your night vision So did the Dark Skies Apparel's Hooded Observing Vest deliver on those promises? You bet!

Quality and Craftsmanship

What a quality piece of apparel this is! The vest and materials that are used in its construction are really top notch, I was really surprised by that, I mean I didn't know what to expect, and was impressed that Dark Skies Apparel put the effort into selecting such quality denim. The thick black denim will no doubt hold up for a lifetime, and the sowing job, well whoever puts this material together knows what they are doing for sure, just fantastic. The test apparel that I received had no loose strings, no frays, just in mint condition, I can't imagine anyone not appreciating the quality of this vest. The interior of the vest is made up of a comfortable, softer material then the outside denim, a nice touch highlighting the thoughtfulness of the designers.

Physical Characteristics

The vest incorporates a number of pockets to accommodate a variety of accessories. On the left side of the vest (Figure A), your supplied with two large pockets at the bottom which are perfect sized for your large 2" eyepieces, or in my case, my editions of Pocket Sky Atlas and Objects in the Heavens. These deep pockets will ensure you books and/or eyepieces don't fall out either. Next, mid-way on the vest, are two more pockets that nicely accommodate items such as your smaller eyepieces, iPod, lens pens, and eye caps. I can tell you, I have lost plenty of eye caps in my day, and with this vest, those are a thing of the past. Your last pocket, now about check high, is specifically designed to hold your pens and pencils, and even your green laser pointer.

Figure A - Left Side

The right side of the vest (Figure B)has the same pockets, just slightly different. You still have the same large pockets at the bottom of the vest, but where the left middle pockets were split down the middle, the right as one large pocket, again large enough to hold standard eyepieces, filters, etc. The breast pocket on the right is perfectly sized to hold my digital voice recorder, something I use almost every observing session when I prefer to dictate my observing sessions rather then write them down scope-side.

Figure B - Right Side

Field Use

I observe almost exclusively from my backyard, in rural Murfreesboro TN. My neighborhood is typical - a densely populated, single family community with rather small yards. I do not yet have a observatory, and my setup is simply a blanket for scope or tripod, chair, and sometimes table and PC. I'm lucky I guess that only a few of my immediate neighbors keep their back porch lights on, it could be far worse! For the few observing sessions that I used to evaluate the Hooded Observers Vest, I was greeted by a not so typical couple of nights that my neighbor, who is usually very nice to put out their porch lights when I request, was out of the evening and left the porch light on. This light is about 25 feet or so from where I setup my telescope, so it can easily destroy any possibility of seeing all but a handful of the very brightest of deep-sky objects with any degree of marginal success, so I thought it would be great to test the effectiveness of the hood at blocking stray light. With the vest on and hood up, besides making me look like a Sith Lord at a Star Wars convention, its quite effective at blocking out bright lights, a real world test that I'm sure many of us backyard stargazers would prefer never to have to deal with.

The rest of the evening I enjoyed keeping my digital voice recorder set to voice activation mode and dictating my observing report as I jammed on my iPod; swapped out my 2" 30mm numerous times with my 1 1/4 14mm UWA eyepieces as I studied some winter open clusters; tried my OIII filter on some planetary nebulae; referenced my now truly pocket editions of the Pocket Sky Atlas and Objects in the Heavens. I did all this with no fumbling in the dark for my accessories, no stacking of items on my LS8 mount that inevitably get knocked to the ground, and viewing deep-sky targets with little concern for the lights of my surrounding neighbors.

Conclusion


Dark Skies Apparel recognized a need and filled it - supplying the astronomical community with a unique offering that every amateur astronomer can use while observing from their backyard, in their own personal observatory, or even during an outreach event. These high quality vests come in two sizes, regular and XL, and in two different offerings of hood or non-hooded editions. I'm glad that I requested the XL version, since I'm a large fellow I'm happy to report that the XL version fits perfectly, even with the extra layer of cloths we commonly have on during these cold winter nights. The Hooded Observing vest does exactly what it is intended to do - a unique piece of apparel that keeps a variety of accessories conveniently accessible for amateur astronomers while also blocking stray light from effecting your night vision. The Hooded Observers Vest will undoubtedly add to a more pleasurable experience the next time your out at the eyepiece.

For pricing and additional information on this unique line of apparel, please visit Dark Skies Apparel.

At The Eyepiece show topics for the next few episodes

At The Eyepiece show topics for the next few episodes.

Show topics for the next few episodes:

2/12 – Review of the Orion Intelliscope XT6i, plus I give my list of useful website for amateur astronomers of all levels.

2/19 – Featured Guest – Greg Stone. Greg has a wonderful blog for beginning stargazers, http://astrojourney.wordpress.com/, as well as being co-contributor for the fantastic double-star blog, http://bestdoubles.wordpress.com/. This evening Greg will be sharing the wealth of information he has gained in the more than half a century of being an amateur astronomer so be sure to tune in, I’m sure it will be an enjoyable discussion for all.

2/26 – Review of the SouthernStars SkiFi Wireless USB Telescope Interface, and an absolute beginners guide to planetary imaging with the Meade DSI II.

3/4 – Help in planning your Messier Marathon, plus some online resources for virtual Messier Marathons if your nights are clouded out. Initial impressions of observing the Sun with the Lunt LS35T

3/11 – Featured Guest - TBD

3/18 – Review of the Celestron CG5 GoTo Equatorial Mount, and how it compares to using an Alt-Az mount in the field for visual observing.

3/25 – Virtual Star Party – Weather permitting of course – Other topics TBD (To Be Determined)

At The Eyepiece Show notes for 2/5/2012 episode

Listen to internet radio with At The Eyepiece on Blog Talk Radio

Finder chart for Eros in 2012 Sky & Telescope Finder Chart

Southern Stars releases their SkiFi with USB!

SkyHound releases SkyTools3 Starter Edition

NEAF 2012 vendor list courtesy of CloudyNights 

ScopeStuff's very affordable magnetic weights for metal tube Dobsonians

Online lunar atlas by LunarRepublic

Sue French's Double-Stars for Small Telescopes

Dark Skies Apparel's Hooded Observing Vest

Mars rarely ceases to disappoint

Monday night was clear, so I was out with the LS8 primarily doing some testing in the early evening for some upcoming product reviews. I was just about to pack it in and call it a night when an orb of orange light caught my attention to the east. Oh Mars, mighty Mars, you just wouldn't let me call it a night before beckoning me to center you in my eyepiece and take a look. The night was cold however, probably in the low 30s, and dew was saturating everything, but I decided to go in for a bit and warm up, and come back out to take a look at Mars once it rose a bit higher in the sky. It was probably close to 12am local time when I had returned to the scope, and the dew had already transitioned to frost, coating the LS8 and rendering my eyepiece all but useless (my eyepiece dew-heater has not worked all winter, and I have yet to replace it). But alas, "Damn the dew, go ahead and try to image the planet instead" I thought. So I quickly brought out the laptop and Meade DSI II, popped the barlow lens into the diagonal, then the DSI II into the barlow, and after quite awhile of tweaking and fiddling with my focus, I was finally satisfied that the image on my computer screen was about as good as I was going to get for that night. So began a brief imaging session.

I succumbed to the moist chill only after 45 minutes, and decided that whatever images I had taken were going to have to be good enough, and I packed up and headed in. As usual on nights with frost, I dried off my scope as much as possible, and headed into bed, unaware at that moment what lied ahead later that day when I would begin to process the images.

My son off to school, I had about 40 minutes to play with my images before I had to login for work. I cranked up Registax 6, and decided to process the last batch of 240 images I had run just 6 hours before. I selected about 5 alignment points in Registax 6, set my limits, and let the stacking begin. I was presented a modestly improved image on the final wavelet selection screen. "Oh my" I blurted, after selecting the number 3 layer and making a minor adjustment to the right, "That's looking quite good". Onward I went, sliding the layers ever so slightly, while on the screen Mars was growing sharper and sharper and exposing more and more finer detail until before me was an image of Mars in all its glory.

Mars - 240 frames stacked in Registax 6, taken on the morning of 2/7/2012 with a Meade LS 8 ACF, 2x Barlow, and Meade DSI II CCD

The bright polar cap, with an underlying dark feature directly underneath of it that extended from one side of the planet to the other. A large, prominent dark arc on its opposite hemisphere, with hints of darker features in between it and the opposite polar region. I can also make out what seems to be upper level clouds on bottom limb of the planet itself. Needless to say, my day started off great from there, and I look forward to my next night out with Mars, visually as well as photographically. I encourage you to do the same, rarely does Mars cease to thrill when viewed at the eyepiece, and it will only get better as it approaches opposition in early March.