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Ring Nebula

gooseholla

By gooseholla
in Observing - Reports

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gooseholla

gooseholla

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Last night (Wednesday), I set about observing the ring nebula in Lyra, just after it was dark through my 12" scope. The sky was clear, but still a slightly bluish colour when I observed.

Very easy object to find, place your finder or Telrad between the two lower stars in the constellation and it is clearly seen against the backdrop of stars.

First of all, a 32mm 2" eyepiece showed it as a small smokey shape in space. I had a skywatcher 2" LP filter on, and this made it a greyish/blue colour. Could not really tell that it was a ring shape. Averted vision helped enable me to see that it wasn't just a solid circle shape, but that part of the middle was indeed missing.

A 26mm Panaview without LP filter made the view better, showing it to be a ring shaped object. By far the best way I viewed it, however, was with a 20mm T5 Nagler. Really crisp image. The LP filter fitted to this eyepiece just killed the view of the nebula. It just became a fuzzy patch with nothing to note, and of course, the surrounding patch of space became darker (the LP had the same effect on the dumbbell nebula, where it became less defined and the surrounding stars which were clear without it disappeared from view). I would say that on this object, at these range of magnifications (50x, 61x, 80x), that the LP filter only enhanced the view at 50x.

A 15mm 2" eyepiece gave a view bigger than Jupiter at 80x (to my mind!), and clearly showed it to be a ring. The eastern side of the nebula (as seen in a Newtonian), was clearly brighter than the other side, but nothing more was particularly seen. I dared not use the LP filter at this magnification (106x), as the image was quite faint already, and would probably have caused the nebula to disappear from view.

So, all in all, the best nagnification range (as judged from my setup) to view this object well, would be about 70 - 100x, maybe even 110x on a good day. A LP filter doesn't add anything really, and indeed takes away from the view, at these ranges.

A most wondrous object to look at though, and an interesting one to draw. So get out there and find it now that the moon has disappeared early in the viewing night!

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gooseholla

gooseholla

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Hah! Well hopefully this next astronomical year I'm going to get better at sketching lol. My first attempts were "yup, that is a round thing on the moon, oh and there is a squiggle" lol

DSO and getting stars in the right place, and relative sizes just baffles me lol

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gooseholla

gooseholla

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Yeah, CCD images etc. are great, and to anyone who likes that side of astronomy, good for you! However, I like to capture what the eye is seeing, and what is there to see. I am more of a simple black and white guy lol. Call me old fashioned, but I believe, within reason, that is what amatuer astronomy is about - getting out there and enjoying what you are seeing in real time - not what a computer and hours of processing is showing (although, we all love Hubble style images, and they are a great part of astronomy, as I said above!).

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