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The Ring Nebula and Dumbbell Nebula 11/10/2015

gooseholla

By gooseholla
in Observing - Deep Sky

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gooseholla

gooseholla

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Greetings.

18" F/4 telescope.

Seeing conditions OK. Could only make out the main stars of constellations through the patchy cloud.

I set up in my back garden in a village atop the highest point in Essex and hoped the cloud would disperse. The cloud was patchy and it wasn't fully dark yet but I wanted to catch The Ring Nebula before it went behind a tree.

Ring Nebula

6:02 - 6:30 pm UT

I started off with a 24mm eyepiece. This gave me magnification of 75x. I looked throughout the general area but couldn't find it so I placed an OIII filter onto the eyepiece. There it was, a faint ring barely visible at that time. It appeared as a definite doughnut shape but the space in the centre which turns it into a ring was not easy to see. It was more a fuzzy blob than defined sparkling ring. Averted vision started to show the ring shape the more I viewed. After a few minutes it was showing as a nice smoky blue/grey ring floating in space. I noted that the left side caught my eye more, appearing brighter slightly than the rest. I also detected the presence of a faint star to the lower right, quite close to the nebula.

By 6:15 UT the Ring was becoming more noticeable. I had switched to a 15mm eyepiece giving 122x magnification. This made the Ring shape and the faint star below it really obvious. The left and right parts of the ring were brighter than the rest and the top part was faintest of all. I noted that the shape of the ring was wider than it was longer. Adding an OIII filter,  the Ring really stood out from the background, shining like a fine gold or diamond ring.

Moving up to an 8mm (230x) the Ring became big in the eyepiece but not very bright. Two streaks, one on each side of the Ring, started to appear brighter than the other parts. By 6:30 pm UT the nebula had disappeared behind a tree.

Below is an sketch of the general stars and nebula at 75X with OIII filter.

12106969_410221055842760_879369290265774

Dumbbell Nebula

6:30 - 6:50, 7:25 - 7:37 pm UT

I found this rather easily with no filter in a 15mm eyepiece. It appeared initially as an irregular white streak in the sky but definitely appearing like an air rifle pellet. Further viewing revealed a faint star to the top left of the left 'bug eye'. The nebula started to appear brighter so I added a UHC filter. This made the central part more distinct and the nebula took on a pill shape across its width. The bug eyes started staring back at me, with the right one appearing easy to see than the left.

Switching to a 20mm with UHC made the view better. The right eye looked larger and flatter while the left eye appeared smaller but almost bulging out. I then took a break and came back half an hour later.

I came back to viewing it with an 8mm eyepiece. It nearly filled the view of the eyepiece at 230x. The background was black but the nebula appeared faint. Although faint I counted two stars in the central bright part of the nebula. The central of the two needed averted vision to see. There were four more faint stars around the nebula itself. Adding a UHC made the central stars disappear but made the area really clear to see and the eyes took on a more distinct shape with faint areas appearing around them. By now no averted vision was needed to see details clearly at this magnification. I switched to an OIII and got the impression that the image was fainter but that the two eye parts were easier to see?

I tried a 15mm as cloud was forming but the image was more washed out and less distinct. Deciding I would not see any more detail I stopped at 7:37 pm UT.

A good night considering that these nebulae were in patchy cloud and setting from my location. I don't think I'll get to see them again before they disappear behind my trees. Bring on next summer!

John
 

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John

John

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Nice report John :smiley:

Two classic planetary nebulae and a great way to show what your large aperture can do !

Another great one at the moment is the Blue Snowball Nebula in Andromeda. It looks lovely without a filter and can take high magnifications well too :smiley:

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Mike73

Mike73

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Really good descriptions of the Ring and the Dumbbell John, from what you mention about them I checked my sketches and theres definite similarities in what we both saw (which is always nice!) :)

When I first moved up from 12" to 16" the first thing I noticed was that observing had really changed, with the 12" it was a challenge to sometimes see the finer detail in an object (e.g. spiral arms) but in the 16" is was just there staring me in the face. 

I think I slowed down with my observing with my 16" as I wanted to get everything out of that aperture as I possibly could, going deeper into objects and taking notes and sketches was great fun.

As John says the Blue Snowball is a lovely object with some magnification, when you get to a dark site also check out the Helix nebula which is absolutely massive!!

Looking forward to reading more of your reports.

post-20821-0-90203900-1444643427.jpg

post-20821-0-94234400-1444643434.jpg

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Mike73

Mike73

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That's funny, I checked your site the moment I got in to make sure I wasn't imagining things! :grin:

:)

To be honest the actual brightness of the two sketches aren't very accurate, the Dumbbell appeared a little brighter and the Ring a little less bright. The hardest part of sketching white on black with a dim red light is its really hard to actually see just how bright your making it!

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Mike73

Mike73

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Yeah I have to find a way to change my head torch to red light as holding one and sketching or writing isn't very fun!

John

I use two of these, one clips on to my atlas and the other my sketch pad. It has three brightness modes, you just need to give it a couple coats of red nail polish.

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