Kon

Thank you. I think sticking with this one target for the night and trying over and over for a few nights did help. I am fascinated by nebulas so I am learning that taking my time and reading other's reports (including googgling things) is helping me to be mentally prepared on what to expect.

Well done as well! It is good to hear others got to see it as well last week (what telescope did you use and how dark are your skies?); it's giving me further confidence that I was not imagining things.

Thank you very much. I am still chuffed to have seen it. From my limited experience, my best seeing of the faint nebulas is when transparency is extremely good. I think in UK skies might look nice with many stars but many times there is a very faint haze/moisture in the atmosphere that ruins things. When there are freezing conditions and dry, that's when my skies are the best or after heavy rainfall and clear skies afterwards. I think when I saw it, the conditions were the best I ever had. (I should probably try measure the sqm for my skies, it will be interesting than relying on online charts). You ought to post a pic of the goggles and probably with you wearing them, maybe under the Imaging DSO section 😂. I agree any measures to fully dark adapt is a must. My wife things I am crazy having teas in complete darkness.

I shot the moon on prime focus with my 8" Dob and Nikon D3200. I stacked 25 of 80 frames in Siril and edited in Gimp. I played with the option of bringing out the colours as false mineral by adjusting the hues in Gimp. I am not sure I have done the best with it or it is over the top with the colour saturation (especially the overexposed right hand side); some sharpening as well. I am attaching the linear non sharpened tiff if anybody wants to have a go at it. moon-stack-nosharp.tiff

If you are after a soft eyepiece bag, I bought his from amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CF5OHZ2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&th=1 It is excellent for my eyepiece collection, with space for filters etc.

These are amazing pics with amazing details! The 5th/6th from top have a 3D feeling to it!

Thanks Peter. I hope you get clear skies tomorrow again 😀

After my viewing session I took a few shots of the Moon (8/01/22). 8" Dob, Explore Scientific 8.8mm and 14mm 82 degrees, Pixel 4a and Celestron NexYZ holder. The seeing was very stable so the pics came out very sharp. Minor editing in Goggle Photos.

After the rain we had earlier, the moon looked great tonight, really stable. I spent a good 1hr looking around and swapping EPs from low to high mag.

Thank you for the further info. I have a 32mm Plossl with a large exit pupil, that I do not get along, but not wide field. I wonder if my ES 24mm 68 degrees might do it as well?

Your last image is amazing! Almost too good to be true. Definitely a poster type image!

Very quick session tonight due to catching up with work; Pleiades with some nice nebulosity, quick look at M42, the star field in Taurus including NGC1647, the nearby NGC1662. Skies are very clear due to the rain but I cannot afford another late night. Looking forward to reading more reports tomorrow.

Thanks Peter! The observing section has been my go-to from the beginning especially what others have seen and make note of targets that I am not aware of or tips on how they observed them (EPs, filters etc); feedback has always been great on my reports and I love sharing my experience, as others also do. I am lucky with my dark skies from my back garden and only two neighbours without night lights so last night everything was in place. Regarding the buzzing, I feel like that most of the time I am out and see new things, I love this hobby but not enough clear skies.

I think many people had excellent/near-excellent conditions the last 2 nights. It's been a while the Observing section had so many reports. Nice reading all the reports and descriptions of all the different targets. Let's hope tonights rain is just a blip 😉

Excellent report and thanks for sharing. It seems you had an excellent session. I love reading reports with details since i can mentally visualise the targets. Keep them coming.

Great thanks! I will try do some reading upon it. It sounds like another fascinating it's there /it's not there object 😀.

Excellent report with a nice list of targets.

Fantastic report and loads of fascinating fuzzies! Well done on the Horse Head, you make it sound so easy; if that was without a filter that's very very impressive (I suppose you have your 14" and 21.3 sim skies). Do you find the UHC better than the Hb? That's a nice tip, I have not used a filter on M78. Do you know if Barnard's Loop is visible with smaller apertures?

Very nice read and loads of nice targets there.

Thanks!! With my OIII and Hb I do not see colour any more but more extended nebulosity, especially with the OIII. I do not have experience with DPM NPB; the colours I mention in this and previous report are without filters and very subtle, so do not expect the vivid colours from AP. The pinks around the trapezium teal nebulosity is more prominent and the darker reds in the wings is again very faint and subtle.

I had to wait until Orion was in my SSW horizon. I think conditions were just right last night. With gaining more experience in observing, I notice that M42 has colour in good nights and in so-so/bad it is just greenish/grey. In your 12", is the long nebula between the two stars also very faint or much brighter?

Thanks John. I agree it is not a spectacular sight but the difficulty as well as the reports behind it make it a must-see. I still think the Veil is the highlight of my observing thus far in terms of wow factor. Luckily everybody was asleep and before I got out, I was in the house for a good 20min having a cup of tea in the dark (sounds a bit sad). My rigel was off, no mobiles around, total darkness. I believe the conditions have to be right, since the night before it was a no-go. The guidelines, on how to see it, posted in your observation thread from 2017 were of extreme help as well. Thank you!

My skies are supposed to be bortle 3 (with my E, I would say 4 due to lights from a nearby village). As discussed in a previous thread about scales etc, I can see the Milky Way arch from S to N with structure in the summer when it is overhead. Several clusters are visible naked eye as smudges of light. Again transparency is key as some nights Milky Way is not that great at all.

After the great session the night before, I was treated to even nicer skies last night. I got out fairly late with my 8" Dob and I was amazed to see the sky being 'bright' from the stars so transparency was pretty excellent. My aim was to see if I can see the Horse Head nebula (B33). I started at M1 for a warm up. Nicely shown in the EP and with the OIII filter I could get some more details. Somehow when I tried to up the magnification (ES 14mm 82degrees) with the filter, it made it completely dark; without the filter it was looking very nice. I then check M42/M43 and colours were more vivid this time compared to the night before, so things were looking promising. The reds were much stronger and I could see some faint pinks through the Trapezium nebula rather than just around it. Finally, I got to Alnitak and even without a filter I could just about make the Flame nebula (I was using my ES 24mm 68degree EP). With the Hb (Explore Scientific), the Flame was really standing out 'very bright' with the dark lanes cutting through with direct vision. Reports I had read here and an excellent thread on B33 suggested to look for the NGC2023 nebula as an indication of seeing conditions. This time I could see the nebula around the star as a diffuse light/halo. Things were looking even more promising. I then got Alnitak out of my FOV (at the bottom of the EP, and NGC2023 was much easier to see. I spent a good 30 mins scanning around moving Alnitak out of the way and very very faint elongated nebulosity running from S to N was observable between HD 37805 and roughly HD 37744 with direct vision. With averted vision I thought I saw part of the nebula missing towards the East (Dob orientation). It was the size and shape of half thumb. No Horse Head shape, no features just a little cut out of the nebula. I could not believe my eyes. I was literally jumping around with joy and disbelieve. I moved away from the EP and started the procedure all over again. It was still there! The more I relaxed, especially knowing where to look and what to expect, it was popping much easier; at this point I was dark adapted for more than 1 hr. As others have reported, fairly dark skies and excellent transparency are key. Although Alnitak was a bit of nonsense in the wide FOV EP, it helped to see the nebula between between HD 37805 and HD 37744 since I could make some of the darker background edges; a narrower one might have been easier to tame Alnitak but maybe to the expense of spotting the weak nebulosity. I am pretty confident to say that I have seen this elusive nebula, Barnard 33 🐴 . What a night! I am still buzzing from the experience. I finished the session by just looking up and taking all in; I spotted the Persei double cluster naked eye and had a quick look through the EP and it was a magnificent display of stars with various colours as always.

Thanks John!! Nice to hear a confirmation from experts, I am bouncing on my own in the cold 😀. I am getting very very faint hints of the Flame without filter as well.