Messier 8

Little Lens, Low Lagoon

Messier 8
Messier 8

Object Name: Messier 8, Lagoon Nebula
Object Type: Emission nebula
Location: Wilp, The Netherlands
Date: July 21, 2012
Media: Black pen and graphite pencil on white paper

After literally weeks of rainfall and clouds, last night the sky finally cleared. I took my little 80mm f/6,25 refractor out to a fairly dark site to observe some low Milky Way objects. In the Netherlands Messier 8 rises only 14 degrees above the southern horizon, but because of the very transparant sky much more detail than I expected was visible. Using an Orion Ultrablock filter the dark lane was pretty prominent, and the bright patch on the western side of the nebula appeared to glow. It was a wonderful sight at 38x (13mm Vixen LVW), even at its low altitude.
The sketch was made with a black pen (for the stars) and a 2H graphite pencil (for the nebulosity) on a piece of white paper. Inverted and orientation-flip using Photoshop.

Kind regards and clear skies!

Roel Weijenberg,
Deventer, The Netherlands
www.roelblog.nl

3 thoughts on “Little Lens, Low Lagoon”

  1. Great sketch, and you may observe under a terrific dark sky. Congratulations on your job, and show us a little bit more, please.

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