Stan’s Nebula

NGC 7048
 
  I have a very dear friend who inspired this little deep sky sketch and I wish to
share the story with you.
  Stan Waterman and I are very close friends but as astronomers we are ‘poles’
apart. Stan a scientist never looks through his telescopes he uses them as lenses
for his mighty camera. His aim is to locate extra solar planets by measuring the
minute dimming of their stellar light. Clear night after clear night he captures
the photons on his chip from 20,000 distant suns in Cygnus and run’s them through
his self written software program to look for dips. He has been doing this for 5
years and has amassed terabytes of data.
  I for my sins am a visual observer and a romancer of the heavens stealing my
photons with pencil and pastel.
  
  In other ways Stan and I are much closer, we both love with a passion all of
natures splendours and discuss its wonders over coffee when our busy lives allow.
   We enjoy looking at the star patterns on the PC monitor that his camera has
capture in such profusion. A number of times we have wondered together over an
eye catching pretty, round planetary nebula caught in the web of stars.
  These shared wondering inspired me to point my own telescope into Cygnus to
located this memorial to a once fine star and capture it with my pencil.
  
  NGC 7048 Details:
  Planetary Nebula
  Constellation of Cygnus
  Mag 12.1 Angular dimensions 1″
  RA 2h 14m 33sec DEC +46deg 19m 23sec
  
  Telescope/observation details:
  
  14″ F5 Newtonian, magnification 175X, fov 0′ 17″
  Seeing Ant 11, Transparency good
  UHC Filter
  Chippingdale observatory, Nr Buntingford, UK