Veil Nailed

[dick_dangerous]

It's taken me all night to come up with that title, but finally last night I managed to find the Eastern Veil Nebula from inside Bushy Park. After several attempts at finding the Western Veil I read that it's the other side that's the brighter part, so with the aid of a UHC filter I was able to make out its wispiness glowing away in the eyepiece, brighter with AV (Naturally). I was quite pleased about this because it's an object I've wanted to view for ages - makes me want to get out under a fabled dark sky. I'm going to try it from Northern Spain if we get a clear night, but I'll have half the aperture there (Assuming I can get the ST80 and my camera in the same bag).

Last night was a night of hits and misses. I started out by locating the underwhelming, and soon to be below the horizon, M70. It's little more than a fuzzy star in the EP (Might be better in Spain). I had a go at finding M55 but completely failed, in spite of its brightness. I'm guessing that as a relatively spread-out Globular close to the horizon it suffers from the same fate as M4 in being a real challenge to find. M54 was just visible, but in a similar vein to M70.

After that I took a cruise of my favourite Sagittarius region - M17 glowed strongly, with that Swan shape nice and clear with the UHC. I picked out a few of the open clusters in that region of sky, but when I moved on to M8 I began to realise that summer is fast departing. Although the cluster was there, the Lagoon itself was invisible, as was the Trifid. Finally I ended on a high note, and another new Messier, M30. I'd heard it was difficult to locate - in fact I found it rather easily, and very nice it is too. The fact it's so concentrated makes it quite an easy one.

Thanks,

DD

[Stu]

Nice one DD, not easy from a light polluted sky.

I don't think I've managed it from Walton, but have yet to try the 12" on it.

It looked lovely in 4" from Dorset, and was also visible in 15x50 binos so I reckon if the skies are dark in Spain you might be lucky with the ST80 and a UHC.

Stu

[Daniel-K]

Nice read I cant wait for autumn!

[PeterW]

Woah!! That must have taken some good seeing!!

PeterW

[ollypenrice]

I never saw it in the UK. Well done.

Olly

[Luke]

Congrats! I saw the Veil in Dorset with a little 60mm scope and UHC and OIII filters (one filter at a time!). Makes me want to live in Dorset! There wasn't to my eyes much between the UHC and OIII in the 60mm scope, I preferred the UHC slightly as the stars looked a little punchier.

[dick_dangerous]

I'd really like to get the Dob somewhere dark to get a look at it - although faint Veil is still quite an achievement. Shame I haven't managed to get out there since this one!

DD

[Stu]

I'm going to give the 12" a go on it from home, should do the trick as I just about saw it in the 6" under very poor conditions.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Special K]

Well done, That's some serious bragging rights from London: tough target! I've tried and tried and convinced I don't know what to look for yet. The current Sky at Night issue has a nice star chart I might use to try again.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Well done nailing that elusive target!

[Austin]

Nice one i had a nice little list of dso's to mooch at on friday night.... But the veil was my one and only stop! I spent 40 mins on it at least, using my 32mm, OIII and UHC filters with a.v through my 10" dob. Great object!

[pyrasanth]

I nailed this "baby" with a H-A filter. I wanted to take more subs but the sky became misty.

This is part of the nebula the witches broom or NGC-6960.