Cat's Eye Nebula

[Ags]

I found the Cat's Eye Nebula last night. At 55x magnification it looked like an out-of-focus star but pretty bright and rather green. After belatedly realizing it was the target I was looking for (and not a focussing issue or dew on my corrector plate!) I upped the magnification to 220x. The image was still brightish but I could not make out any structure in the little patch of light.

What sort of magnification do you have to use to see some detail on this object? The ring nebula by comparison shows some intriguing details at 100x.

It seems to have an incredibly high surface brightness for a nebula. Perhaps a lucky alien civilization is located 20 or so light years from this nebula - what a sight they would have!