North America Nebula

[kirkster501]

As I said, I have never seen this with a scope or bins.  Just via imaging or the good old Mark 1 eyeball....

[athornett]

Seems to be a consensus re effectiveness of bins. Just like M33, more easily seen with bins that telescope. Wish I had bins with UHC filters!

Andy

[swamp thing]

Some here question me on that sighting but it was definitly the NA.

I don't doubt it for a minute. It's important to remember that extended objects aren't any brighter through a scope than as seen with the unaided eye. All scopes do is make them bigger for the same brightness, so they stimulate more rods in the eye. The NA nebula is huge, and doesn't need to be made bigger to stimulate extra rods in the eye. All that's needed is contrast, and dark skies help with this. I have seen it many times with just an O-III filter held up in front of my unaided eye. I find the filter really helps to pinpoint the nebula itself, and seperate it from the rich star clouds in the region.

Bins help by resolving some of the rich star clouds allowing the neb to be distinguished. Both bins and an O-III filter can help, but yes it can be seen without, I know I've seen it myself, and my eyes aren't exactly great.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Like others, I prefer to use a much wider field of view to observe NGC 7000 and the Pelican: either my 15x70s (4.4 deg FOV) or the APM 80mm F/6 with 31T5 and UHC filter (15.5x, 5.3 deg FOV). The low magnification and wide FOV mean that the nebula is framed properly, and the light is not "diluted" as much through magnification. The apparent dimensions are about 2 deg by 1.67 deg, so a 1.6 deg FOV means that you do not easily see all the edges.

Hope this helps