On the night of June 15, 2020 I sat down with my 8" SCT and 32mm Plossl eyepiece and aimed my telescope into the constellation Vulpecula for one of my favorite planetary nebula, the Dumbbell Nebula, or also known as M27. A lot of planetary nebula are relatively small and hard to spot in the eyepiece, or require a bit of magnification to pick them out among all the stars. The dumbbell nebula is quite large and bright in the eyepiece and is one of the many go-to objects of the summer night sky. M27 is roughly 1,360 light years from earth and has a radius of around 1.44 light years, and is the second brightest planetary nebula in the night sky next to the helix nebula, but due to it's surface brightness it is a little bit easier to spot than the helix nebula.
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| M27 the Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula |
This sketch was one of the first ones I did after switching from white printer paper to black canson paper and using white charcoal pencil for star placement, and then using a white pastel pencil and blending stump for the nebula itself. I also used a kneaded eraser to dim some of the surrounding field stars for a bit more depth and variety in star brightness since not all the stars are of the same magnitude.
If you would like to see where this object is located in the night sky and see the time lapse of the sketching this at the eyepiece, be sure to check out the video below:
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