horsehead

[BUSMANMARK]

Hello people,could somebody tell me would it be possible to view the horsehead nebula with a skywatcher 130 explorer i have the standard ep,s 10mm and 25mm plus an 8mm and 15mm vixen npl,s many thanks.

[Peter Drew]

The answer, sadly, is no, you would have more chance to see Shergar . The Horsehead is notoriously difficult to see visually even with large telescopes under dark skies. Small telescopes suitable for astrophotography seem to provide good images of it but even that would probably be outside the scope of your current equipment. If it's any consolation, I've never seen it visually myself.

[BUSMANMARK]

Oh well thanks peter guess there are many more things for me to see ?

[umadog]

Yeah, I've tried under moderately dark skies with my 18" and failed to see it. I think I caught a glimpse of the nebula in which it's embedded, but that's it. However, there are loads and loads of other things to see! Most people like to start with the Messier catalogue, but there are plenty of non-Messier objects which are also bright and/or interesting. Buy a copy of "Turn Left at Orion" and work through that.

[pel]

I'd love to see it too.

I'm going to try taking some images in the area and see what comes out. I don't hold out much hope though as my DSLR isn't modded with a better filter. I'm fairly light polluted too.

[Tribal-Wolf]

Better off watching The Godfather I think if you really want to see a horse head lol

[Daniel-K]

in my 16 at a dark sky all i could see was pink neb but i was not using a filter for some reason

[Stargazer_00]

this triggered a memory, i recall seeing an old friend from sweden, years back who sent me a link to some of his work. didnt really appreciate it until I read this thread..

this is one of his pics

http://aak.alderaan.nu/view_image.php?id=51

[Tribal-Wolf]

NICE!

[James B]

When the weather is next appropriate, I hope to try to image the horsehead nebula. I have a faint image with my DSI II/ Meade LX200 GPS, taken a while ago, in which the "head" fills nearly the whole image but can be distinctly seen. I tried recently with a Nikon D5100 at prime focus, despite being fairly sure that the nebula should have been "in the frame" (I had just slewed from a dead-centre M42) I could not see any evidence for it's presence. I have looked at the star pattern in my image and compared it with the excellent image of the nebula posted in this thread, but I cannot see how close I was to the object of the photograph. It was only 1 x 30 sec exposure and then cloud came over so maybe better luck next time!