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Crab nebula??


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It's more challenging than you think it ought to be. A UHC filter helps make it stand out a little better but I have to say it's not the most exciting object to view, despite it's fame. Any light pollution in the sky, man made or lunar, makes it very difficult to spot.

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Amazingly, once you have found it, it becomes an easy object even in somewhat poor sky transparency or light pollution. I have observed the Crab many times under varied conditions and once with a 1/4 moon low in the western sky. On a dark night with good transparency and very little light pollution at a distant observing site, I could make out a hint of filament structure and a hint of very vauge color but I think this was more wishful thinking than fact. I have observed the Crab in a 4" newt and it's a fairly easy object in my 10" newt. Its tiny size takes HP well if the conditions are good. For an example, I have detected it with only a 4.5 mag. visibility near the zenith when the Crab was high in the sky.

Don't give up - once seen, it's a rewarding object in even modest sized scopes. Mr Q

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I find the Ring and Dumbell Nebulas much easier to spot than the Crab. It is very faint and a widefield EP certainly helped, as well as the Moon being otherwise engaged elsewhere ;)

Nice to find but it's not a particular favourite for me.

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With objects like the Crab and galaxies like M33 M101 it is not the equipment - all are visible in 10x50 binos - you need fairly transparent and darkish skies though. See this link from astroeddie trip in the south atlantic which admittedly are skies most of us can only dream of...

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-sketches-unconventional/161808-trips-bino-dsos.html

andrew

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I have seen this in 15x70s from my quite light polluted garden. I'd suggest you use your lowest power eyepiece in your 80ED and I bet you'll see it with averted vision. Rock the scope back and forth in the right area and it will begin to 'pop'.

At a dark site recently, and for the first time, I saw structure in the central portion of M1 with my 16" dob and a UHC filter.

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The Crab Nebula was one of the first DSO's I saw when I got my Mak last year.

It took me several nights to find it, and to be honest it's not much to look at, but the buzz of finally finding it is very rewarding.

I agree with everyone above, I think it's the darkness of your skies that are important not so much the equipment with this one as proven with my tiny Mak!

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I think we have been spoiled by the Hubble photos of the Crab Nebula. When you do eventually find it, it may look like nothing more than a small smudge. I do enjoy imaging it though, it has some unique detail and color:)

Am I correct in saying one does not need a huge magnification to see it?

Spent good 40 min trying to locate it. Am pretty certain I was looking directly at it (off the eye's blind spot), could see nothing. Void. Could so clearly see all three 10.25, 10.05 and 9.65 mag stars within ~20 arcminutes of it. Zilch. Darn LP. Can't imagine this can be solved using higher magnification, can it? In fact, I was using moderate 60x.

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Found this just now with my heritage 130p, 25mm ep. Wasn't planning to go out, but it looked so clear when I checked, I had to.

Compared to Adromeda this is much fainter. Its little more than a smudge for me. It is clearly there though with averted vision and movement of my scope.

Tried to find the pinwheel galaxy after this, couldn't see a thing. No idea if it's possible with my scope.

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Found this just now with my heritage 130p, 25mm ep. Wasn't planning to go out, but it looked so clear when I checked, I had to.

Compared to Adromeda this is much fainter. Its little more than a smudge for me. It is clearly there though with averted vision and movement of my scope.

Tried to find the pinwheel galaxy after this, couldn't see a thing. No idea if it's possible with my scope.

Teasing me, right? :) 200P is collecting over twice as many photons as 130P, and I can barely see M31 as a hard-to-see-smudge-no-wings. Sharpness of the image was a non-issue, I see those 10.25mag stars next to Crab nebula as a clear sharp point, little astigmatism and no coma. No Crab though. Crab. :)

LP to blame. Too far to go to get out of the city.

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Spotted it two nights ago from our mag 4.5 backyard with my 8" dob. As it is close to Zeta Tauri it's quite easy to find the right spot (with help from print-out charts from e.g. Cartes du Ciel). Once you know you are really looking in the right place you can afford to spend some time to really try to catch it with averted vision and a UHC filter.

Wouldn't say that the view was breath-taking though..

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Teasing me, right? :) 200P is collecting over twice as many photons as 130P, and I can barely see M31 as a hard-to-see-smudge-no-wings. Sharpness of the image was a non-issue, I see those 10.25mag stars next to Crab nebula as a clear sharp point, little astigmatism and no coma. No Crab though. Crab. :)

LP to blame. Too far to go to get out of the city.

The southern part of the sky is much darker than the northern part where I am. If this was in the north I don't think I'd have a chance to catch it.

Don't get me wrong, Andromeda is also faint for me. I can only see the central area, can't make out any detail. It's just a smudge of light. But it is very obvious when you find it.

The crab nebula though is little more than a small grey wisp. If I wasn't expecting something to be there I don't think I would even notice it. When was looking for it it was quite high in the sky.

Got my first look at the Orion nebula last night. It was quite low in the sky and it was not as spectacular as I was expecting it to be. Hopefully it will rise higher at some point.

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I could just about make out the pale oval patch of M1 last night with my ED120 refractor. It's easily overlooked - I've seen it many times before but I had to hunt around quite a bit to pin it down - 1st time this season. I was using a 13mm Ethos eyepiece - 69x magnification. You can find it with lower power eyepieces too but I find the extra magnification darkens the sky background making these faint objects just a little easier to pick up from my moderately light polluted back garden.

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I had a look at M1 last night. It took me ages to find it the first time. Now I know what to look for it is relatively easy in my 10" and a 14mm EP (x86). I've never seen any structure, just a faint (very faint) oval patch.

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Hi

This is an object I had a great deal of difficulty with, when I first tried to find it many years ago.

I wrote of many failed attempted over many weeks in my log, before finally nailing it. This was from moderate ( approx 5 VLM ) skies.

On my first successful observation when I managed to spot it at 22x through a 4.5" newt, I wrote: "faint rectangular glow, homogeneously bright, no structure, detail or colour evident."

It's one of those objects that, once seen you can't miss it.

I was observing it only the other night through my 10" Dob and an observing buddies 4" frac.

Regards Steve

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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