Inspiring sketches! (was: Re: Einstein's Cross)

Thanks, Julien, for posting the link to Bertrand Laville's sketches!

I hadn't seen his site before, and I have to say that I'm really impressed!
Not only the number and difficulty of the objects he's seen, but the way he
makes his sketches. I'm looking at his `Techniques utilisees pour dessiner
le ciel profond extreme' page, and it's really neat. I particularly like the
way he make nice, round stars. None of those horrible-looking, blobby,
scrubbed-in stars that one sees so often. He sweats the business of making
them *round*, and I really like that.

Also quite interesting is his method of not actually making the final
sketches in the field. That makes a ton of sense to me. It looks like he
makes, in essence, `brightness maps' and lots of notes, and then he makes
the final sketches indoors, based on these maps and notes. Again, that
sounds like the only way to go. Looking at his site, I think he's set the
gold standard for deep-sky drawings. (I seem to recall that Harold Hill's
lunar drawings were made the same way.)

I particularly liked this part:

``Je dessine sous forme des lignes des isophotes... exactement comme... les
courbes de niveau pour materialiser le relief''

In other words, he draws isophotes, just like contour lines which are used
to show topography. Having drawn isophotal maps of various galaxies this
summer - albeit on photographic base maps - I can attest to how much work
that would be. I love his precise, scientific approach to his drawings.

Even better was this line, in reference to his note-taking:

``Je suis tres <<bavard>>''

(``I'm very <<chatty>'')

Yeah, baby! You go, brother! That had me really psyched, because... er, um,
no reason...

Anyway, Laville rocks. He's got me psyched to be out observing faint fuzzies
again, if we ever get some clear skies.

-Marek Cichanski

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