Helix Nebula NGC 7293

[WaveSoarer]

For quite  a while I thought that the Helix Nebula would be too low to be observable from my garden but a quick scout from a couple of nights ago with my binoculars showed me that it just might be possible. The star field around the nebula was neatly in a gap between the next door's house and garage and I had about a two-hour window. It was a clear night last night and so I set up the scope as far into the corner out front as I could. At first the nebula was behind the neighbour's roof but after about half an hour the marker stars were at last visible in the finder. The star hop down from the water jar is surprisingly straightforward and the location of the nebula is quite tightly bracketed by faint nearby stars. I tried viewing with my 15 mm EP first of all but there was nothing visible. I wasn't overly surprised at this as the sky this low down wasn't as crystal clear as it was at zenith (where M31 was an easy naked eye object last night). I then tried a lower magnification with my 20 mm EP with my UHC filter attached. This worked like magic and there it was quite literally staring back at me. It was a ghostly grey smoke ring very much in th shape of an eye. A real wow moment and the view was much better than I was expecting. The size of the nebula, given that it's a planetary, is very large and so the lower magnification revealed quite a lot of detail. It's certainly a much more rewarding view than some of the planetaries I've managed to observe. Some clouds spoiled the fun during my window of opportunity but it was a rewarding evening nevertheless. The dew was quite something last night also and my finder completely fogged up later.