On the night of June 16, 2020 I aimed my 8" SCT at the constellation Lyra to look at one of my all time favorite planetary nebula, M57 the Ring Nebula. This is such a fun object to view and if it is above the horizon and I'm out with the telescope I will almost always give it a quick look. I used my 8-24mm zoom eyepiece for this nebula, but didn't need to zoom in at all, so I left it at 24mm.
This nebula shows the final stages of a star similar to our own Sun, and it sits around 2,000 light years away from Earth. With a magnitude of 8.8 given it's small size, around 1.3 light years in diameter, it is relatively easy to see in moderately sized telescopes.
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| M57 the Ring Nebula in Lyra |
This sketch was done on black canson paper, using a white charcoal pencil for star placement, a kneaded eraser to dim the stars and give the stars a bit more depth, and a white pastel pencil and blending stump to place the nebula.
If you would like to see where to find this object in the night sky along with a time lapse of me sketching this object at the eyepiece check out the video below:
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