Veil Unplugged

[andrew63]

It was very transparent tonight. After my usual look at Nova Delphinus in binoculars, it was very clear down on the southern horizon so continued to sweep through the star fields of Sagittarius down to another view of Messier 6 and 7.

Then with the telescope got my first view of Messier 75 - a small globular cluster and due to it's low location not much to see in a small telescope. Looked at 44x and 71x - although quite a bright stellar like core.

The Milky Way was very bright through Cygnus so wanted to try and see the Veil Nebula, in light of the wonderful recent reports. I concentrated on the eastern section as this was supposed to be the easier bit and I do not have a filter. I started with a lowish power of 27x but had no joy. So going on the tips of Nick and Rik looked with a bit more 44x.

I'll describe what i saw as the area was indistinct and will hopefully get some confirmation by others. The view of the object through the eyepiece was like a bit of smoke coming and going - and the tone was like the view of the milky way to the naked eye. I'd move from the area and then come back and see the same tone difference and odd 'patch' of tone. My field at 44x was 1.5 degree so i assume i was seeing an odd edge. Looking forward to getting some more time on this elusive object.

andrew

[John]

I could just make out the eastern segment with my ED120 tonight without a filter. It's around 2 degrees in overall (visual) length and strongly curved. Add an O-III filter and it's really very obvious as is the thinner and more sinuous western part.

If your skies were really dark you may well have picked it up with your 102mm scope. The description of it's appearance without a filter seems right.

[andrew63]

Thanks for that John. The sky was very good !

andrew