M78 is how dark?

[pipnina]

I took this with 18 mins of exposure last night @ f4.5 ISO 800, the lens seems to lose sharpness a lot at the edges so I can't wait to finsih my barn door.

http://i.imgur.com/WMjRpX6.jpg

At any rate, I was surprised to get the flame, the horse head and the world's faintest hints of the witches' head in this but not M78... Not even the slightest hints.

I'm guessing this is just my camera not being sharp enough to make it out to being just a defocussed star... But is it really darker than the flame which showed up easilly? I mean, if so, charles messier would probably have seen the flame instead aha.

I intended to go looking for m78 in my scope at my dark site soon, since it's surface brightness looked fairly reasonable and it's a messier... But this is weird to me.

    ~pip

[almcl]

Pip

I think it is there.

I've over-stretched the jpeg you've posted and that slightly defocussed star with the green pointer may be it (open to correction by others, of course).

So well done, that's a good haul!

[pipnina]

Pip

I think it is there.

I've over-stretched the jpeg you've posted and that slightly defocussed star with the green pointer may be it (open to correction by others, of course).

So well done, that's a good haul!

M78.jpg

That looks a lot like the right place actually... But I'm not convinced I managed to get it in the photo properly... Looking at my uncompressed TIFF in the same place it looks a tad... star-like.

Mind my focus was a little out and the lens wide open so it's really not that sharp haha. perhaps M78 will show up better once I can get to a darker site and my barn door is finished...

Cheers,

    ~pip

[gooseholla]

almcl definitely has given the correct location for it. There is not a star that bright in Stellarium in that location and that is the location of M78.

[laser_jock99]

I got this widefield image (400mm FL) last year which might help you close in on M78 (South is on the right).

The small cluster of stars is a good pointer. The centre part is fairly bright but the whole dark dust cloud is rather big.