McNaught's Tail - 2nd Observation

Date: 20 January 2007 U.T.
Time: 01:30 U.T.
Binocular: 8x42
Seeing: Good
NELM: 6.0 - 6.5
Temperature: +27 F (-3 C)


Clouds presented some difficulties this evening. As my sky darkened, transparency seemed to gradually improve over most of the sky; but multiple, small, scattered clouds persisted in the neighborhood of Comet McNaught's tail rays. Nevertheless, I was able to see the rays better this evening than I could yesterday -- probably due to a combination of multiple gaps between this evening's smaller clouds and the absence of the thin, smokey haze that plagued yesterday's sky.

In the above sketch I've rendered the clouds invisible in order to better show the cometary rays. The motion of the clouds over the course of the observation allowed me to effectively see 'through' them -- even though they had grown worse by the end of the session. I don't give up easily!

On Sketching: I may be my own worse critic. The sketches in this blog are all done fairly quickly; and more often than not I make notes on the originals specifying how each sketch can be improved. A quick comparison of the above sketch with yesterday's sketch will reveal some changes that go beyond the raw subject matter. In a very real sense, each sketch is an experiment in sketching. In all sincerity, I hope I never create a 'perfect' sketch. I'm a human being, not a camera. I want to do the 'seeing' myself!