Horsehead Nebula questions

[PeterW]

Here here, if you have the right kit and "he knowledge" and the right sky conditions come along, then there is no reason to see it. California.... another fairly easy (definitely not small) one!

 

Peter

[estwing]

3 hours ago, John said:

I did try the Omega DGM NBP filter out on this target on Saturday night (the session where I thought I was close without a filter). The Flame neb stood out a little more as did NGC 2023. IC 435 looked fainter and I could not see the very faint elongated IC 434 any better than without the filter. I believe that seeing this nebula is the key to spotting the Horsehead because it's basically a bay that intrudes into / overlies IC 434 as I understand it.

I found the 24mm Panoptic (exit pupil 4.5mm) and the 17.3mm Delos (EP 3.26mm) effective on Saturday but I'm happy to experiment.

What a lot of fuss over seeing a bit of "nothing" !

 

 

 

try the 13 ethos John...

[YKSE]

59 minutes ago, John said:

Nor would I Yong, having tried it, but on that night I only had that and an O-III in my case so I thought it worth a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. As it happened the latter was the result of the DGM NBP filter but at least it's been tried now.

An ES H-Beta filter has just been delivered here so I'll give that a try next time out. It's light pass chart looks a little generous but it might do the trick

Nice, looking forward to your first light, John. Cocoon should be a good target for h-beta, even though it's getting low now.

[Davesellars]

Ooh didn't realise ES had produced a Hbeta filter.  If so and £39 that's a considerable saving.  The transmission on the graph looks similar to the Astronomik.

just purchased said ES Hbeta filter. It's on offer at the moment at TH. Normal price on ES site is 85 euros (£70 ish)

 

[John]

1 hour ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

John I will be interested how you get on. I notice that TH have the 1.25" filter for £39 and I was thinking of buying a second H.Beta  filter for my Apollo 15x70 binos - mainly for the California Nebula. Sorry for going away from the HH thread.

If I see the HH with it Mark you will hear the "whoop" from Herefordshire easily

[Paul73]

Still trying with the Lumicon Hb and the 24mm TV Plossl (6mm exit pupil) or 18mm BCO (4.5mm exit pupil). Both seem to work well with the filter. It feels like it is close / just on the edge of vision. 

Might need to get the 20mm TV Plossl.... Just to make sure!

Paul

[Davesellars]

I have the 32mm Baader Plossl, 25mm Hutech Ortho, ES68 24mm and the 19mm Panoptic.  The 19mm Panoptic and 25mm Ortho has served me very well with the UHC filter on faint nebulae including the Heart and Soul.  I'd imagine a quite large exit pupil is a good thing for the H beta so perhaps the 32mm to see IC434 initially.

[mikeDnight]

12 hours ago, Davesellars said:

OK..  So i'm intrigued from a couple of recent threads   Perhaps I may attempt to go for this one this year if only to improve my observation / technique of faint nebulae!

First up: What's the approximate SQM-L or NELM of sky to begin to attempt this nebula or rather the starting points around it (Flame nebula and then IC434 before going on to attempting to see the HH "notch").  Dark adaption being paramount obviously although there are some local lights a few hundred yards away from my site I can block them out completely with a cloak to protect the eyes.  NELM on a really good transparent night will be 5.5 but normally around 5 to 5.2.   This would be observing with the 12" dob.

I do have a site I've visited but not observed from as yet that should be considerably darker as it's 5 or 6 miles away from the north of Oxford and no local lights within a mile.  The only catch is I'd be using much less aperture and would travel with my 120ST.  Still, for this kind of nebulae, darker skies are more important than significantly more aperture?  At this time of year I'd rather not be observing here though as I have to go by bike and with the icy conditions is most likely a really bad idea.....   So I think to start at my normal site with the dob and put up with protecting myself a bit more from any LP to garner better dark adaption.

er..  Any other tips?  I'd be interested to know your sky conditions for observing the Flame and IC434 and filters used etc

Transparent  skies and good dark adaption are paramount. Aperture is of secondary importance. Your 120mm Star Travel should certainly reveal the flame , and given time and patience as your eyes sensitivity increases, IC434 will reveal itself. It's best if you use some kind of blackout blanket to protect your eyes from stray light.  The horse head itself is tiny so you may not see it as a horses head, though you may detect a small dark notch in the nebulosity. IC434 itself becomes more evident if you look not only for the bright nebulosity but also the dark nebula which gives it a hard edge along its length on the side of the HH.

Attached are sketches of the impression it gave in my 100mm scope earlier this year. I used 20mm XW and a 10mm XW eyepieces.

Mike.

[John]

Wow Mike !

Thats as much detail as I've been able to see with 12" of aperture, so far.

Great observing and sketches

[jetstream]

4 hours ago, Davesellars said:

I have the 32mm Baader Plossl, 25mm Hutech Ortho, ES68 24mm and the 19mm Panoptic.  The 19mm Panoptic and 25mm Ortho has served me very well with the UHC filter on faint nebulae including the Heart and Soul.  I'd imagine a quite large exit pupil is a good thing for the H beta so perhaps the 32mm to see IC434 initially.

With the paracorr the 32mm is perfect with the Hb. It might be worth trying the 25mm/Hb without the paracorr.....

[Davesellars]

That's a great post Mike and love the sketches!  Many thanks.

well. Got the gear now and just added a TV 20mm Plossl mainly as i have two EP cases and needed one to cover this focal length (one of my most used focal lengths).  But I'd imagine this with less glass as well will aid better transmission with the dob for very faint nebulae.

All I need now is a profundrance of clear and not so humid nights!

[Mark at Beaufort]

10 hours ago, Davesellars said:

I have the 32mm Baader Plossl, 25mm Hutech Ortho, ES68 24mm and the 19mm Panoptic.  The 19mm Panoptic and 25mm Ortho has served me very well with the UHC filter on faint nebulae including the Heart and Soul.  I'd imagine a quite large exit pupil is a good thing for the H beta so perhaps the 32mm to see IC434 initially.

Dave I am hoping to view the HH with the narrow FOV of the 24mm end of the 8-24mm TeleVue zoom. However, I have a feeling that less glass might be a more sensible option. For this reason I was thinking of a Hutech or Fujiyama 25mm Ortho and I liked your comment about using the 25mm Ortho with a UHC on faint nebulae especially as I will be using a 12" Dob the same size as you.

[Davesellars]

Mark, I'm yet to try the 25mm Ortho in the 12" dob but I've used it in my f/5 refractor (120ST)  with exceptional results with the UHC.  Sometimes depending on the object the 19mm was better though giving a touch of extra contrast.  The main problem with the Hutech is the eye relief is large and the eyecup no where near high enough leaving your eye floating quite a bit above the lens.  Very difficult to use until I bought an eyeguard which was suitable from Edmund Optics.

[Mark at Beaufort]

1 hour ago, Davesellars said:

Mark, I'm yet to try the 25mm Ortho in the 12" dob but I've used it in my f/5 refractor (120ST)  with exceptional results with the UHC.  Sometimes depending on the object the 19mm was better though giving a touch of extra contrast.  The main problem with the Hutech is the eye relief is large and the eyecup no where near high enough leaving your eye floating quite a bit above the lens.  Very difficult to use until I bought an eyeguard which was suitable from Edmund Optics.

Thanks Dave. I had a pair of Fujiyama 18mm Orthos which I used in binoviewers which had the same eye relief situation. I sold them for that reason. I must admit that when I saw the HH with the 16" Dob at the SGL star party I used a 19mm and 24mm Panoptic in fact preferring the 19mm.

So I will give the TeleVue zoom a go in first instance and see what benefits I get. I might consider a 25mm TeleVue plossl or maybe a 25mm Vixen SLV unless someone can recommend something else in the this range with a 40 degree + FOV. I also thought about the Baader Classic Plossl 32mm although I know that John felt slightly under whelmed with this eyepiece.

[mikeDnight]

1 hour ago, Davesellars said:

That's a great post Mike and love the sketches!  Many thanks.

well. Got the gear now and just added a TV 20mm Plossl mainly as i have two EP cases and needed one to cover this focal length (one of my most used focal lengths).  But I'd imagine this with less glass as well will aid better transmission with the dob for very faint nebulae.

All I need now is a profundrance of clear and not so humid nights!

Hi again Dave,

Just one other thing that might help you in detecting the Flame and IC434, is to trying to keep Alnitak out of the field of view. It is blindingly bright and may be even more of a problem in a larger aperture scope.

Mike 

[Davesellars]

Yep, I think the Flame is slightly more problematic because of this as Alnitak is so close.  I can see using SkySafari I have a good "frame" with either using the 25mm ortho or 20mm Plossl (yields pretty much the same FOV) using the stars hd37805, hd37699,  hr1959 and hr1950 of which makes a nice trapezium shape with IC434 running directly through this.  If I centre these stars even with the 32mm plossl it still keeps Alnitak out of view. Also may be useful using the size of the trapezium as a reference to the size of the HH itself.

[John]

I could see the Flame on Saturday night even with Alnitak in the FoV. Of course it might have been a little clearer with the star outisde the view.

As for HH eyepieces, I wonder if the Baader Classic 18mm ortho might be a decent choice ?. The exit pupil is 3.4mm with my F/5.3 dob. The 10mm classic ortho was proved to go very "deep" when compared with the Delos 10mm and the ZAO ortho 10mm by folks in the USA desert using very large aperture scopes. Previously they had found the Delos 10 the next best to the ZAO 10 but the BCO 10 exceeded the Delos in this respect.

When I compared the 18mm BCO with the BGO of the same FL I felt that the former did show a little more of faint DSO's than the latter. Not much in it but maybe every little helps !

[Rhushikesh-Canisminor]

One of my friend and I gave it a try for Horsehead nebula on last Saturday-Sunday during our public observation. Although he kind of has 50-50 opinion whether he saw it through his 8 inch dob, I confidently saw it.

I always try for Flame nebula first. If I can see the dark patch that kind of splits the nebula into two fuzzy patches, I can get horsehead nebula. Last time, we used UHC filter, 25mm plossl eyepiece ( that gave around 50x magnification).  sadly , it was a public event so we didn't have the time to make a sketch.

After flame, I look out for the bright patch between Alnitak and Sigma Orionis. Last time, since we were using filter, IC434 nicely showed up with hints of red colour. Then, once I am used to the star pattern in the field of view, I look for horsehead and for almost all time, it's there.

It doesn't look much happening in small telescope. But it feels like a small kid put up his pinky finger in the brightness. It's really small, but compact. Try direct-averted vision disco, telescope tapping etc.

When I first tracked horsehead one year ago, I used 90mm refractor, 36x magnification, limiting mag was +6.5 and I spent half an hour looking at that region. I still get laughed at when I say this in public!

With bigger telescope and better gear, it will be really easy.

[John]

I don't think seeing the Horsehead will ever be really easy from the UK. I've seen enough tales on this forum of the lengths that folks go to and still don't find it

I suppose that from Mumbai, Orion is a lot higher in the sky than it is from the UK ?

 

[Rhushikesh-Canisminor]

9 minutes ago, John said:

I suppose that from Mumbai, Orion is a lot higher in the sky than it is from the UK ?

Oh yes! I am sorry that I forgot latitude factor! Orion is almost overhead from here.Once it moves towards west, we can see constellations like columba, Carina etc. in south.

[A budding astronomer]

It must be really hard to see in small telescopes due to Alintak :/

[John]

1 hour ago, A budding astronomer said:

It must be really hard to see in small telescopes due to Alintak :/

One of the ploys to adopt is to put Alintak outside the field of view. Even the magnitude 7.5 star HD 370805, which lies closer to the Horsehead Nebula than Alintak, seems to drown things out.

 

[Davesellars]

ES H-beta filter arrived so looking forward now to the next opportunity of course this will have to be now when the Moon is out of the way!

[John]

14 minutes ago, Davesellars said:

ES H-beta filter arrived so looking forward now to the next opportunity of course this will have to be now when the Moon is out of the way!

Mine arrived a couple of days ago. Impressive packaging ! - it must add a fiver to the cost though

Lets hope for some really nice, dark, moon-free nights soon !

[Davesellars]

I think it's just that a lot of astro companies are pretty bad when it comes to packaging their product even if it's going to be thrown away.  ES use really nice strong boxes for all their EPs and nice to see the filters equally well packaged.  Costs next the nothing really after design etc.

Can't see any opportunity unless  Saturday or Sunday morning is clear once the Moon has gone (perhaps leaving an hour of proper darkness).  Otherwise it'll be into the Xmas period which would be great to have nice run of clear nights!