NGC 246 "Skull Nebula"

[Roel]

During the autumn holidays I spent a week with my son (14) on La Palma. Stargazing was not at the top of the priority list this time and, moreover, the island suffered from a heat wave + associated atmospheric dust in the first days. Temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius and skies comparable to an average night on my Dutch "dark" observing site. Not bad, but it didn't encourage an all-nighter either.

Nonetheless, there were a few pretty good evenings, including the one on October 17. That evening I saw Andromeda's Parachute for the first time and later that night the Horse's Head was clearly visible (the correct "viewing direction" of the Horse was visible), and of course you would kill for such a sky in the Netherlands. Logged a few objects, such as some globular clusters in M31, and I made just one deep sky sketch: the breathtaking planetary nebula NGC 246 or “Skull Nebula”.

This planetary nebula does not rise very high above the horizon in our regions, but this is very different on La Palma. What a beautiful object! At first, the brightest parts, in combination with three stars, look like a somewhat elongated baboon's head with two eyes and a mouth, but soon you notice the fainter parts that make the sphere almost completely round. The skull shape actually disappears a bit and the object becomes a large clear ball of flakes with razor-sharp transitions in some places, like a kind of peel.

I actually wasn't planning on making a sketch at all, but this nebula screamed so loudly that I just had to!

 

[Mike JW]

Excellent sketch which captures this object.

Mike

[SwiMatt]

This is excellent! Thanks for sharing @Roel!

[mikeDnight]

Truly awesome! 

[AlcorAlly]

Beautiful sketch, I love the 3D effect you captured in the nebula and the soft glow of the stars.

[YogSothoth]

Very nice sketch indeed.