Fine line black ink tattoo of a ringed planet with three small stars on the ankle, with another hand with pink nails holding the leg.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ringed planet and stars on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small ringed planet is drawn in thin black outline on the side of an ankle, with three tiny five-pointed stars arranged around it. The linework is clean and even, with no shading, and the tattoo is set against pale skin. A hand with pink nails holds the leg against a bed sheet printed with green and cream botanical motifs.

Fine line Ankle Planet Saturn Star Outline

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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 Ines, the dome has been shut since Tuesday, so I'm writing this on the back of the sky chart you pinned above my bunk in March. Mr Okonedo says the rings will tilt towards us a little more each week until they're nearly edge on and seem to vanish. I told him that sounded like a conjuring trick. He said it was geometry, which is what he says whenever he'd rather not argue.

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Last night the cloud finally broke over the ridge road and I carried the old refractor out to the bench. Saturn sat low above the Cheviots, pale as a coin, its rings thin as a pencil stroke. Three small stars hung close by, as if someone had dotted the i's. I drew it in the chart margin the way you taught me, outline only, no shading, because shading makes you believe things that aren't on the glass. Then I sat there feeling absurdly proud of a circle with a line through it.

The timetable has changed, so the last bus leaves Alnwick at ten past four. If you want to see the planet before the cloud comes back, you'll have to walk up the pass from the lay-by, and you'll need the torch with the cracked lens. Bring the flask. Bring proper biscuits, not the digestives you hid in the cupboard.

I'll leave the porch light on and the chart on the bench, with the little ringed planet already drawn in the corner, so you'll know which one is ours.