I saw NA nebula with naked eye last night

[kirkster501]

I was imaging the NA last night. I was in a dark place and I could see, faintly, the NA nebula by eye. First time ever so so pleased! It is so indistinct you have to use diverted vision but was definitely there.

[Destris]

Awh Man that's so cool xD hopefully the skies should be clear tonight!!!

[cotterless45]

Neat, can't wait to get to Skye in the autumn for 2 weeks. Lots of this type of target is possible by steady eye,

Nick.

[acey]

Certainly possible at a dark site to see a brighter patch of the Milky Way near Deneb. Whether this is actually the North America nebula or a mass of unresolved stars is a moot point - the test would be to look through a nebula filter held up to the eye and see if the patch looks dimmer or brighter. In any case that region is a beautiful sight - I was looking at clusters near there last night.

[swamp thing]

I've seen it from really good dark sites when holding up an O-III filter to my eye.

Use the filter first to find it then move the filter backwards and forwards in front of the eye. Some really dark skies you can indeed see it. As acey says there is a very rich area of the stars there that can make it very tough without a filter to distinguish.

[JamesF]

I was looking at that area last night wondering if I could actually see it and whether a filter might help. I shall give it a go next time we have a clear night.

James

[ollypenrice]

I think that naked eye is actually the easiest way to see it. That said, I take Acey's point that it may be starfield you're seeing. It would be nice to have some filtered bincoulars though. Holding filters in front of binos has never been my thing and it is easy to drop one, t'other, or both. You can imagine that it isn't one of my regular party tricks here, given the price of filters (and binoculars...)

Olly

[kirkster501]

I don't have a Nebula filter to check unfortuantely. Appreciate what you are saying about stars sometimes resembling soemthing else. But I am pretty certain it was the NA I saw. I will go to the same place again next tiem it is clear and check again.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have also spotted NGC 7000 naked eye, though the star field northwards is also bright, as others have said. I found that the best views by far were through my APM 80mm F/6 with 31T5 "Panzerfaust" and UHC filter. This gets 15.5x magnification, and 5.3 degree FOV. The view was way wider and sharper than in my Helios 15x70 bins (which also showed the nebula well). The Pelican also shows up much more clearly. As Olly said, bins with filters would help (TS sell some, but I am not sure about the quality).

[steppenwolf]

I too have seen NGC7000 naked eye and from my own garden - just the once but it was an amazing sight and for me as exciting as seeing Saturn for the first time!

[Stu]

I think that naked eye is actually the easiest way to see it. That said, I take Acey's point that it may be starfield you're seeing. It would be nice to have some filtered bincoulars though. Holding filters in front of binos has never been my thing and it is easy to drop one, t'other, or both. You can imagine that it isn't one of my regular party tricks here, given the price of filters (and binoculars...)

Olly

That's exactly what I have Olly, Canon 15x50is binos with adaptor rings to take standard 2" filters. The slight flaw in my setup is that I have one OIII and one UHC-S filter because I refuse to buy another specifically for bino use! I guess two UHC-S would be ideal.

Anyway, from Dorset last week I had my best views of the NA nebula, both using the binos and also my 106mm with 21 ethos and OIII, was very nice :-). I couldn't specifically identify it with the naked eye, or holding a filter up though.

Stu

[nmdonahoe]

One of my favorites. I've had great unaided views from exceptional sites, but I thin my best views have come form my binoculars while holding a UHC filter over one of the eyepieces. Truly looks like a B&W photograph.

Sent from Tapatalk 4 on my HTC ONE

[PeterW]

See if you can pick up the pelican and the sweep of nebulosity IC5068 below....

:-)

PEterW