inktober 2025: cellestial bodies
These are my lllustrations for the Inktober daily drawing challenge throughout the month of October 2025. I chose cellestial bodies for my own theme this year, I love a bit of science and it is a great way to get a wide range of illustrations and show different aspect of the starry sky above. 
DAY 1: MUSTACHE have selected a group of renowned astronomers, all linked together by their moustaches (this is not even all of them!) These are by no means all of the astronomers we know about: some have no facial hair, some have beards but no mustache and then there are the female astronomers.
DAY 2: WEAVE The Chinese myth of the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd: Zhi Nu was a heavenly weaver who fell in love with a mortal cowherd called Niu Lang. Their love was not permitted and they were banned to the opposite sides of the heavenly river (the Milky Way). The weaver girl is said to be the star Vega and the cowherd is said to be the star Altair. There are various versions of this myth, but here they are permitted to meet every 7th lunar month on a bridge of magpies.
DAY 3: CROWN There are two crowns in the cosmos: Corona Australis, (the Southern Crown) and Corona Borealis, (the Northern Crown). I have drawn a brace of crowns, with compass points, adorned by the
DAY 4: MURKY The night is dark and the clouds cover the sky, it is more Murky Way than Milky Way. It can be hard for some animals like as moths, beetles, bats and to navigate using their regular landmarks of the moon, stars and planets, and they can be attracted and confused by artificial light instead.
DAY 5: DEER Constellations are called different things in different parts of the world. The western constellation of Orion was called Mriga (deer or antelope) in Ancient India. Different cultures have their own ways of interpreting the heavens.
DAY 6: PIERCE The constellation Sagitta, the arrow, has gone off course. Here is proof that the moon is indeed a balloon, which could have catastrophic repercussions on life as we know it. Fortunately, it looks from this illustration, unintentionally, that new life is being formed.
DAY 7: STARFISH It’s a starfish, floating by, in the sky.
DAY 8: RECKLESS This drawing illustrates a Navajo myth which explains how some stars are in constellations (placed carefully in the sky by the first man and first woman), and others are scattered randomly (the mischievous coyote recklessly threw the stars into the sky).
DAY 9: HEAVY The dung beetle rolls its ball of dung away from the dung pile and must make a quick getaway if it wants to keep this precious cargo from being stolen by other male dung beetles. It navigates using the Milky Way, to roll its balls in straight lines using starlight as a guide
DAY 10: SWEEP This is the Finnish myth of Tulikettu: the Fire Fox and Revontulet: the Northern Lights. The tail of Tulikettu, the Arctic fox, sweeps sparks into the sky when it touches low-hanging branches, and this is how the Northern Lights were formed.
DAY 11. STING There is an open cluster within the area of the constellation of Cancer called The Beehive Cluster, or M44.
DAY 12: SHREDDED Zeus punished the Titan Atlas for his role in the Titanomachy (a ten-year battle of the Titans) by making him hold up the heavens. Atlas is pretty shredded, but it’s hard work, not helped by the local bird population: he is not having a nice time.
DAY 13: DRINK This is the teapot asterism which is part of the constellation of Sagittarius. I have illustrated the teapot asterism pouring out a stream of hot Milky Tea, into a Tea-urn (a slightly wonky pun on the planet depicted).
DAY 14: TRUNK There is a nebula called the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A). It is an emission nebula of interstellar gas and dust, within the constellation Cepheus. I have attempted to draw part of that nebula with an actual elephant’s head and I think it has turned out a bit strange. I wouldn’t like to meet that creature, day or night!
DAY 15: RAGGED The Montes Apenninus mountain range on the moon are not the tallest mountains on the moon, but they are the most spectacular. During the first quarter, when the lunar terminator lies directly on or very near the ragged peaks of the mountain range, they cast their sharp shadows across the plain of the Mare Imbrium.
DAY 16: BLUNDER We blunder in with our language sometimes, when things are better left unsaid, or written in verse. How can you describe a dream? I have loved this quite from Madame Bovary for a long time, such a visual description of the inadequacy of language ot express how we feel. Ursa Major and Minor are having a bit of a dance, a happy dance.
DAY 17: ORNATE In Victorian and Edwardian times, brooches were made to commemorate the sightings of Halley’s Comet in 1835 and 1910. The one in my illustration is from the Art Deco period. I have depicted it on my current favourite jacket.
DAY 18: DEAL I recently went on a trip to the Kentish seaside town of Deal with a friend, to come up with ideas for a collaboration, and a new constellation has come into being: The Goose, which is soon very likely to make some more appearances in the actual universe.
DAY 19: ARCTIC The pole star is a star that is close to the celestial North Pole and visible to the naked eye. The North Star changes because of the earth’s axis wobble, which traces a giant circle in the sky in a 26,000 year cycle, meaning that different stars mark the north every few thousand years.
DAY 20: RIVALS This illustration is in the style of an old star map, where I have chosen just to illustrate those old rivals from Aesop's Fables: the tortoise and the hare. They are quite far apart in the cellestial sphere, Lepus lives in the Southern cellestial hemisphere and Lyra in the Northern.
DAY 21: BLAST Oh Blast it, I haven’t really taken this prompt siriusly. I didn’t planet this way, it just Saturned. It’s not a total waist of space though, unlike Orion’s belt, but at least I am back up to date in the space race and on top of the world.
DAY 22: BUTTON This is an example of a button paradox: you would hope that the person in charge of the launch pad wasn’t hungry, but at the same time realise that no one’s going to press it anyway with that spider sitting there.
DAY 23: FIREFLY The fireflies in this illustration are creating two constellations, the top one is Corvus, a crow or raven, and the one below is Hydra the Serpent. I wanted the fireflies to making two constellations and I liked the connection between these two.
DAY 24: ROWDY The Latin name for a rowdy racoon is Procyon Lotor. I can’t find anything to do with a racoon concerning the constellation Canis Minor which that star is in. I imagine that if the racoon knew about this, it would be very cross and would probably cause some damage.
DAY 25. INFERNO The sun is our own distant inferno. We can’t live without it, but it's getting harder to live with it. You can get up to factor 100 sunscreen, but that gives only 1% more protection than factor 30. It would be better to wear light-proof clothing, stay indoors or stop getting rid out the earth’s protective shield.
DAY 26: PUZZLING This is the new moon You can’t see a new moon. The new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. The waxing crescent is often mistaken for the new moon.
DAY 27: Well, here’s a strange one. I think I am losing my grip on reality, Orion has turned into an onion, along with his dog cheese.
INKTOBER 2025 DAY 27: SKELETAL The Cretaceous extinction event took place 66 million years ago when a huge asteroid crashed into the earth, in the Gulf of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. All the large dinosaurs were wiped out, only the avian dinosaurs survived, including this giant ancester of the modern goose: Garganornis ballmanni.
DAY 29: LESSON I am almost at the end of this year’s Inktober. I’m not going to lie, it’s been really hard.
I can’t believe it! I have been awarded the Nobel Prize for my contribution to physics through the medium of the pen & ink drawings I have made throughout this last month with my theme of Celestial Bodies. I can’t believe it’s real, but here it is.