Messier 20 - The Trifid Nebula

[Roel]

Here's another sketch made during the holiday to La Palma at the end of August.
The well-known Trifid Nebula gave an overwhelming impression from the garden of the holiday home in Las Tricias. Especially after searching for some obscure and peripheral stuff for a while, M20's nebula-party almost blew me off my observation chair!

I liked the image without a filter through the 9mm Nagler best - the exit pupil created a kind of "sweet spot" where the dark lanes became the most contrasty. It was not easy to put those lanes on paper: some were deep black and wide, others were faint and barely distinguishable from the nebula.

The "lobes" can also be seen from the Netherlands on a good transparent night, but the sight of this object under a really dark sky is downright insane. Truly one of the absolute highlights of the summer Milky Way.

[Neil_104]

Fantastic sketch! Would love to see this object from a properly dark sky.

[RobertI]

Awesome. That must have been an experience - a 16” scope under a dark sky. 🙂 Did you see any colour in the triffid, is it even possible?

[JeremyS]

Lovely 👍🏻

[MalcolmM]

That's a great sketch!

Malcolm 

[Froeng]

Beautiful!

[GordonD]

That is a beautiful sketch. Must have been a great night.

[TheLookingGlass]

Outstanding !!!