Drawing what you see at the eyepiece, in pencil on white paper, under a red light. It forces you to look long and carefully: you notice far more detail. Galaxy and nebula sketches are often made in negative, then inverted.
Related terms
- Observing log
The notebook where you record each observation: date, time in UT, place, instrument, magnification, seeing, transparency and what you saw. It shows your progress and helps you find good settings again. Well recorded observations can also be useful to amateur societies.
- Red light
A dim red torch for reading a chart without losing your dark adaptation: the retina’s rods are almost blind to red. Keep it as dim as possible. A phone screen should also be switched to red and minimum brightness.
- Averted vision
Looking slightly to the side of a faint object instead of straight at it. The centre of the retina has few rods, the cells that sense dim light; shifting your gaze by about ten degrees makes the object show up better. The gain is about one magnitude.
← The whole glossary