Video, sketching, observing and education

My focus of late has been on how to best integrate video astronomy into my educational programs - and personal observing - so I retain the sense of intimacy - the connections - with the night sky. I'm skeptical of adding layers of technology between us and the photons because I think we easily become either jaded - too much of a good thing - or we become enmeshed in the technology and lose sight of the big picture.

That said - I love video as an inbetween step that can bring us the best of both worlds. What I did last night, however, really has me excited. I decided that instead of trying to capture the video image on a DVD or whatever, I would sketch what I saw on the screen instead. I don't expect anyone to be overwhelmed by the results - but what has me excited is the added intimacy factor you get from sketching. Ok - I know some may be curious about the results, warts and all, so here they are:

That's sort of M13 - and below is sort of M27.

I've long preached the value of drawing in my observing classes. I think even blind contour drawing - which anyone with nearly zero training or skill - can do and benefit from is a great help in learning how to observe. In blind contour you don't look at the paper. You put your pencil to the paper and your eye to the scope and you simply have your eye slowly trace the outlines of an object - or the positions of stars - while your pencil mimics your eye movements. There is no intention to produce something to show someone. You need to understand that from the start. The goal is not to draw - or learn how to draw - the goal is to see - to learn how to see. Believe me,a bsolutely anyone can learn to draw - if they only first learn how to see. And believe me, most people when they look through a telescope see very little - while experienced amateurs, who already know how to see, see much, much more in the same scope.

So it is with the quick pastel sketches I did last night - though here I had a decided advantage. since these are not blind contour drawings. They are quick (10 minute) pastel sketches done in the comfort of my home while looking at an image on a large television that is being transmitted wirelessly from my telescope 150-feet away. For the technically inclined, I was using an 8-inch LX90 with an F6.3 Celestron focal reducer. The camera was the MallinCam Color Hyper and these were 12-second integrations. For M13 - which just managed to fit the two 7th magnitude stars that bracket it - I also used the MFR-3 focal reducer and a 10mm extension. For M27 I cut out the MFR-3 and the 10mm extension to give me more magnification.

What was great from a sketching standpoint was I realised that

* several people could be sketching at the same time

* I could work in full room light

* I could work in total comfort

* I could draw on a scale much larger than what we usually use at the telescope - in this case I was using black contruction paper, hard pastels, my finger to rub them in, and I used nearly the full sheet of paper. They've been scanned in and reduced.

From an educational standpoint I do NOT intend to just plunk people down in front of a television set. I will continue to do what I already do. All my instructional observing sessions begin with some naked eye observing. We may then move to binoculars and small scopes, depending on the targets. Finally, we end up at the 15-inch Obsession for deep sky work and ONLY after they have done this, made notes and quick drawings, do I have them look at the same object on video with a camera int he 8-inch LX90.

Given my experience last night, I now plan to move them to a more comfortable observing area and encourage them to really take their time - 30 minutes at least, to carefully examine and draw the video - AND I WILL MAKE SURE THEY FEEL NO OBLIGATION TO SHARE THE RESULTING ART WORK WITH ANYONE. If they wnat to - fine. But that is not the goal. The goal is to make apersonal connection with the universe - to fully appreciate and be awed by what you are seeing. To the extend the sketching from a TV screen enhances this, it's in the program. It certainly worked for me last night. Now I'll see how it works with others ;-)

As always - your thoughts and comments are welcome. I'll publish them here unless you ask me to keep them private. Just send them to gstone@umassd.edu.