
PST 40 / 8 mm TVP eyepiece - 50 X
Pastel , Conte, Pencil on black paper
There were several proms on the solar limb that morning but these busy proms on the eastern limb seemed to be the most interesting to me.
Some of the magnetic field lines around AR 1283 stood out for several seconds in good detail so I sketched them in with pencil over the pastel. That's why they appear a little shiny as pencil does that when used over pastel. Fibrils in the suns chromosphere line up along magnetic field lines giving up secret invisible information about their shape and extent of some of the magnetic activity in the Active Regions.
Obviously I am re tuning and re focusing the telescope constantly to capture all these features on the same plain , on a piece of paper. The sketch is CD size.
C/2009 P1 Garradd Sketch

Mag 8 Seeing 2 / 34 X / 35 mm eyepiece
200mm objective / FL 1,200mm
Bray , Co Wicklow Ireland. South is up
The Comet was close to the hook in The Coathanger Astarism aka C399 Collinder 399 ,aka Al Sufi's Cluster or Brocchi's Cluster.
The X marks the position on September 2nd but cloud prevented a second sketch.
I was very impressed with the distance this icy visitor had covered in twenty four hours.
Garradd finder maps here below

garradd_findr.pdf |
Where would we be without Apollo, those ground breaking adventurous manned missions to our Moon? Included in my blog this month is a pdf showing the landing sites of Apollo missions, you can use the maps in it to see the places with your own eyes. (Courtesy of Jane Houston Jones)
The Grail mission twins will fill the cup of lunar knowledge to the brim with new data from these high tech robotic Moon scanners. It should be interesting at the end of the mission to see where the twins will be crash landed; this action will also generate information about the Moon.
Listen to this months What's Up video podcast below to get a good overview of the mission.
More on the GRAIL mission here
Two instantaneous launch opportunities are available daily for the GRAIL mission to blast off during a 42-day period extending from September 8 through October 19.
I will be watching the GRAIL launch on Spaceflight Now check in on the morning of the 8th to see how the weather window is doing and update yourself on launch times.
What's Up for September 2011 - Jane Houston Jones - It's GRAIL to the Moon
You can see lunar landing sites on the Moon with your own eyes ! Download the pdf for a map to help you see them for yourself.

whats_up_on_the_moons_2_lunar_landing_sites.pdf |