Barnards Loop

[Casus belli]

Is it possible to see Barnards loop visually?  I'm sure I spotted it a couple of years back through my 10" dob on a night of exceptional viewing but I have heard that that might have been a case of the "I want to see's" as its only a camera capture object.

The thing is, I seem to remember seeing it, wondering what it was and then finding out what it was

[Stu]

I would think it unlikely. It's a huge object covering a large area of Orion so I'm not sure what you would see in the scope? It is quoted as 10 degrees across ( in that learned resource Wikipedia!), so in a scope with only a degree or two fov, you would be looking through it as much as at it. It is quoted at mag 5, but that is spread over a very large area so the actual surface brightness is extremely low.

What/how did you see it? Maybe something else?

Cheers

Stu

[Casus belli]

I remember seeing a faint hint of nebulosity in an arc at the top of Orion and much the same to the east of orion.  Its quite possible that it was caused by skyglow from nearby town which coincidently looked like Barnards loop.

[Stu]

Looks like it is possible visually, but I expect it needs very dark skies, and an H Beta filter from the comments on this post...

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbarchive/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1918813/page/6/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

Stu

[ollypenrice]

I'm sure you should try just N of M78 with the widest possible field. That's the brightest part. I've never tried it myself but must have a go.

Olly

[Casus belli]

Looks like it is possible visually, but I expect it needs very dark skies, and an H Beta filter from the comments on this post...

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbarchive/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1918813/page/6/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

Stu

Interesting.  I don't have an H-beta filter but I do have a UHC which I do remember using on the orion nebula.  I may have been using it that night.  My viewing site was very light free at that time and the seeing that night was exceptional.  Other observations and descriptions, seem to tally with what I remember leading me to believe I did spy it.

Well thanks guys.  I was reading the thread about observing the horsehead nebula visually which I had previously thought impossible.  I'd also heard that Barnards loop was impossible to observe visually but reported success on the hh had me thinking.

[acey]

It has been suggested that Herschel may have seen part of Barnard's Loop but that's speculation. It was discovered photographically by Barnard in 1894. It may well be possible to see parts of it visually at a very dark site, but it would be very hard (even with a filter) - certainly harder than the Horsehead.

[kirkster501]

When I was working in the dessert in Oman I thought I saw this with the compound scope.  It is so dark there you cannot see the hand in front of your face and I think I saw the Northern bit of the BL.  But hand on my heart I could not categorically say I did.  That was with a Panoptic 35 in a 8" Dob.