NGC 7662

The Blue Snowball

NGC 7662
NGC 7662

In a cold night last December I decided to spend some time observing NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball nebula in Andromeda, and the observation resulted in this sketch. At low powers it looks like a fuzzy star that shows a remarkable bluish color, which is probably the most evident color I’ve seen in a deep sky object. At high powers that color is lost, but the nebula starts to show a low contrast annular structure: it appeared to me as a slightly oval, thick ring with a small, not very dark central zone. The whole nebula had a “mottled” appearance, but no additional detail was visible.

Sketch: 2HB graphite pencil on white paper, scanned and processed with Photoshop CS3
Object Name: NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball
Object Type: Planetary nebula
Location: Asturias, Spain
Date: December 26th, 2011
Instrument: 120mm f/8.3 refractor + Planetary 9mm + barlow 2x (222x)
NELM: around 5.3, moderate light pollution

Clear skies!
Diego González

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