A colour nebula over a black and grey mountain range, tattooed across the shoulder and upper arm, shown beside a digital version of the same design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Nebula and mountain range on an upper arm

Realism · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a night sky of bright nebula clouds in teal, orange, green and yellow above a dark, snow-dusted mountain range. The mountains are rendered in black and grey with soft shading, while the nebula uses blended colour and scattered stars. The left panel shows the design as a digital image, and the right panel shows it on the upper arm and shoulder of a person whose face is not visible.

Realism Shoulder Upper arm Nebula Galaxy Mountain Star Cloud Night sky Landscape

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Anaxo, the snow came down to the lower terraces three days after you left, and the goats have lost all interest in being milked. Mother says I am to write every new moon so you know we have not frozen, so I am writing on the first night the sky has been clear enough to see past the ridge. You will laugh, but the cloud has torn open above Kalmar's peak like a fleece caught on a thorn, and out of the tear has come a light the colour of oranges held to a lamp, then green, then a blue like the inside of a mussel shell.

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Old Lysandros came up with his stick and sat on the wall beside me without asking. He says the lights are the ash of the first hearth, carried up by the wind and set alight again by the gods so the mountains will not feel so alone in the dark. I told him that was a poem and not a reason. He only laughed and said the surveyors would call it a reason once they had measured it, which is the sort of thing he says when he is pleased with himself.

I have done what you asked and tied a loop of red wool around the boundary stone at the pass, so that when you come back over with your cord and your rule you can find the exact place where the light falls across the snow. Lysandros swears the sky will look different by then. I told him I would hold you to it. Come home by the spring thaw and bring your figures with you. I want to see whether the fire is still burning.