Ink Spot Nebula (Barnard 86) & NGC 6520 - Sketch
Location and conditions: Negev desert (Nahal Barak), Israel, ~6.5 mag. sky.
Time and date: 1-2/07/2011 , ~02:00.
Instrument: Orion skyview pro 8" F/5 Newtonian. 13mm Vixen LVW eyepiece (77X).
Drawing details: Graphite pencil sketch on a white paper, made while observing with a telescope under a red light. Processed in Photoshop. Observer: Michael Vlasov.
size: 5' ; opacity: 5/6 (6 = darkest) ; constellation: Sagittarius
object at left: NGC 6520 open star cluster
size: 6' ; magnitude: 7.6 ; cosntellation: Sagittarius
Notes:
The Inkspot nebula (B86) is a tiny dark cloud in Sagittarius, which almost completely obsucres the background stars of Milky Way (5 out of 6 in opacity scale) - giving an impression of a spilled spot of ink (because of it's shape as well). It is one of the most impressive dark nebulae, though to observe it fairly dark skies are required.
To me it apears more like a small, deep hole in surrounding star field, rather then spot of ink. The nebula is adjacent to a small and rich open cluster of similar size (NGC 6520) - which can appear like it was torn out of the milky way, leaving a "hole" behind.
Near the cluster's edge (it's SW) there is a thin dark filament, which probably belongs to B86 but not nearly as dark as the "inkspot".
A bright, yellowish 6.7 magnitude star is glowing right at nebula's edge.
Original drawing:
