It has been a week since I have been back from the Eldorado Star Party and the rigors of the job and the demands of the family have tried to crowd out the memories of that week under the skies of West Texas.
One of the ways to combat this is to review and process my sketches from the week. The word "process" is a little misleading. The technique that I have developed for digitizing my sketches is rather simple. First, I scan the sketch using my Canon MP240 printer/scanner and save it to a .jpg file. I then open the file using a freeware program, GIMP. Gimp is a a nice little program that has many of the features of the pricier programs like Photoshop. Using Gimp, I crop and then invert the image to make it a white on black image. I then zoom in on each star and using the paint brush make sure the stars are rounded. Once this is done, I adjust the brightness and contrast of the image to ensure that the detail comes out. Lastly, I add text to the image.
Below are some of my sketches from the star party. You can double click on the image to enlarge it.
NGC 7331 is a fine edge on galaxy in Pegasus. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It is relatively bright at 10.2 mag. It is also relative close to Stephen's Quintet and can be used as a way-point when star hopping to the galaxy group. NGC7331 is also the center member of a grouping of galaxies called the "Deer Lick" I was unaware of this at the time of the sketch and so I did not look for them. Another reminder to research your objects be fore you observe them!
Comet Garradd is bright comet that has been taking a leisurely tour of our solar system. Th comet is currently in Hercules and is well placed for observing in the early evening. It appears a fuzzy ball through the eyepiece with just a very faint tail trailing off to the west.
The Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, is one of the brightest and largest planetary nebula in the northern sky. We find it in Aquarius at 6.3 magnitude and nearly 16 arc minutes in diameter. There have been some incredible color images taken of this object. Look it up on your browser and you will be amazed at the beauty of this object.
Also in Aquarius is the 6.2 mag globular cluster M2. This is a relatively compact globular with a mottled looking core. Individual stars are visible across its diameter. 
NGC288 is another globular, this time in Sculptor. It is less concentrated than M2 and appeared to me as having a larger diameter. It is bright at mag 8.2 and is only about 1 degree away from the bright galaxy NGC 253.Clear skies;
rw
