Nebulae

[violet]

Does anyone know if you can see a nebulae with the naked eye as I'm fairly certain I saw one last night about 330 am GMT

[ronin]

Where are you or where were you - United Kingdom does not help to suggest an answer?

And roughly at what were you looking at?

Also what time was it all?

M31 was always refered to as the Andromeda Nebula, but it is not a nebula.

Nebula tend to be faint, except M42 that is very prominent - it wasn't that s it is below the horizon presently.

Need to know as with eyes quite a few clusters are fuzzy like and so may be interpreted as nebula.

Just realised you say the time, 3:30 GMT, that would be 4:30 BST, which is quite light at present. So I would guess unlikey to see a nebula at that time.

Slight catch is I am not overly aware of what is visible at around 4:30 in the morning, a few objects may be appearing.

[violet]

Just checked my chart and it could well have been andromeda, but it was still dark and a very clear cluster, thank you for your help

[AndyWB]

I was out last week and there were several features that could have been mistaken for nebulae:

The Scutum Star Cloud and Small Sagittarius star clouds - both these are regions where there is unusually little interstellar dust, so you can see further through the galaxy. Through a scope these areas seem unusually rich patches of stars, and are quite big (a fair bit larger than the moon). With naked eyes, though, they appear as bright cloudy patches in the milky way, to the south around midnight.

The Andromeda Galaxy, as discussed above.

The Double Cluster in Perseus - Two close open clusters of stars, but to me they always look like a small bright patch in the milky way - individual stars can't be resolved with just your eyes. This would have been to the north, about 1am

Cygnus, and the Cygnus Rift - The constellation  Cygnus lies on the Milky way, and it is usually bright there, I think. Again, it looks like a cloudiness running through the constellation, and this time with a dark patch splitting that cloudiness. As before, this is actually lots of unresolved stars, but this time some of the stars are obscured by dust lying along the plane of the galaxy - hence the dark division. There's a reasonable explanation of it here: http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2008/08/23/i-sense-a-rift-between-us/ 

That would have been visible nearly directly overhead, for most of the night.

None of the above are really nebulae, but the could look that way if you're just using your eyes.

Does that help?

[Stu]

Not seen it naked eye myself, but under a dark transparent sky the North America nebula is doable. Several members have reported this, including Mike73 in a thread a couple of days ago

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[JamesF]

M31 was easy for my to pick out in the small hours last night even from inside the house (with the lights off, obviously

I've never tried to find the North American Nebula with the naked eye though.  I might have to give that a try when we next have a clear night.

James

[LukeSkywatcher]

Maybe M45?.Not a neb though. Its rare to be able to see a nebula with the naked eye. Clusters and galaxies are easier to see, and galaxies will appear as a bright (compared to the background) smudge which could be mistaken by many as a nebula.

[jetstream]

If the Milky Way is showing well there are patches,rifts,dust lanes and structure that can make some of it seem like nebulosity(and maybe some of it is)-when I checked known nebulae areas(Cygnus)with my OIII filter naked eye I saw nothing enhanced,actually I saw very little.The Milky Way does look nebulous in places though to my eyes,what a beautiful sight.