Akkana's Deep-Sky (and Comet) Sketches

	Comet 17/P Holmes on 10/29/2007, 8:30pm PDT, at 50x through a 6" f/8 dobsonian. No tail, but two levels of brightness in the asymmetrical coma, a stellar nucleus and several field stars.
[Space Junk -- no thumbnail]	Space junk -- a Russian rocket booster -- making a reentry into earth's atmosphere. It took on the order of five minutes to cross the sky, which gave me enough time to run to my 13.1" f/4.5 dob and track it in the 25mm eyepiece. I inverted and colorized the sketch afterward to match the color I saw in the eyepiece.
	6/27/98 was a beautiful night at Fremont Peak, with the fog covering the city lights below so that the sky was much darker than it usually is. I could see more nebulosity with my Cave 6" f/8 than I ever had before in M16, the Eagle nebula, usually a disappointing object. The circle is the field of a 15mm Panoptic eyepiece.
	On the same night (also same telescope and eyepiece), M8, the Lagoon nebula, more than filled the field with bright nebulosity. Another observer called my attention to the diagonal striations in one section of the nebula near the dark lane, and I was able to see them in the 6"; I checked the observations in a nearby C11, which showed them much more clearly and verified that I had in fact been seeing something which was actually there.
	Nucleus of Comet Hale-Bopp. Cave Astrola 6" f/8 telescope, 25mm Plossl eyepiece (48x), from my backyard. 3/26/97. Image inverted after scanning.
	Nucleus of Comet Hale-Bopp. Cave Astrola 6" f/8 telescope, 25mm Plossl eyepiece (48x), from my backyard. 3/21/97. Image inverted after scanning.
	Last year at Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic national park, the seeing was excellent and I went on a chase to look for globulars around M31. I marked everything that I thought looked fuzzy and non-stellar.
	Comet Hale-Bopp through 8x42 Ultraview binoculars. 3/21/97, from my backyard. Image inverted after scanning.
	Sunspots, changing from 8/15/98 to 8/17. Image flipped after scanning since both images were drawn from refractors.