M46 and NGC 2438

[AlexB67]

With a rather long session late night to early morning hours and a low moon I managed to sample some new bits of sky not seen before.  A little taste of M50, M46, M47 I came across  a very faint hint of NGC 2438, despite the moon ( quite low at this point hidden away  and blocked by a house ) I quite easily managed to pick it up, a UHC helped here, but it was detectable without. I could not really clearly see a ring  but definitely a smudge at lower mag. Should make for a great bit of viewing when the moon is completely gone, and a dark site. As it turned out it looked much like as shown in the attached sketch and the following link,

 

http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/000370.html

though overall much less bright mostly due to the conditions I expect.

 

Well worth a visit when you get a chance and haven't seen it before, or for that matter a revisit. We never get enough of it right ?

[Daniel-K]

One of my favourites first got this last April in my 16" was surprised how bright that PN is. Good sketch

[Mike73]

This is a great object which really shows the effect of UHC / OIII and no filter at all.

An OIII made M46 near enough vanish all but a few of the brighter stars, using no filter the Pn was still clearly visible but just not as obvious.

M46 is such a large and dense open cluster that I found it best to use a UHC to lose some of the stars but it still showed NGC 2438 quite well.

http://darkskysketches.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/m46.html

I'm not a huge fan of OC's but I think this one and M6 would be my top two.

[AlexB67]

Mike, That very much tallies Mike with what I saw. the UHC I have did a good job on the PN and supressing the stars.  It was a very good night to test out the UHC filter I bought from Sky's the limit on PNs and it worked very well indeed, on the eskimo especially earlier on too.  M46 was quite low in the sky, plus the moon had not fully set, I was surprised it showed up as well as it in any case.   That STL UHC rocks  

[rory]

Cracking sketch. Thanks for sharing .

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I first spotted that PN in January 2012, after a tip on SGL. Very nice object to observe. I come back to it whenever it clears the trees.

[rory]

Nice to compare your notes. I wrote on my sketch that the p/n was invisible at the mag I sketched it. , but easily seen at x100.

I confess though my sketch was not as good as your effort. .