Blinking Planetary Nebula

[rockystar]

Does any one have a sketch of this, to give me an idea what I'm looking for? Or another nebula that is similar size? Is it Ring size or Eskimo size?

I had the right area in view last night, but couldn't see it.  I understand that it's an averted vision object, and looking straight at it makes it vanish - hence it's name - does this make it harder to find, or should it still be pretty obvious? 

[Doc]

M57 the Ring Nebula is 1.4 x 1.0 arc minutes in size while the blinking Nebula is 27 x 24 arc seconds in size so much smaller.  With a low mag eyepiece it will appear star like, but to the trained eye you will know as it looks different to the rest of them. Increase the mag and you will see the difference. It normally only appears if you look away from it not directly at it.

[Davey-T]

It's around half the size of the Eskimo so quite tiny, an Oxygen filter held in your hand and moved back and forth in front of the eyepiece should help separate it from any stars.

Dave

[Knighty2112]

With lowest power EP this planetary does blink when you look at it, so seen with slightly averted vision best, although with higher power EP it will stand direct vision. It is small, but you can make out it is not a star even when seeing with averted vision.

[rockystar]

43 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

It's around half the size of the Eskimo so quite tiny, an Oxygen filter held in your hand and moved back and forth in front of the eyepiece should help separate it from any stars.

Dave

 Now there's an idea, I'll try that next time. Thanks. 

It keeps getting reported to me (by Sky Tools) as "easy", but it still eludes me.

[Davey-T]

4 minutes ago, rockystar said:

 Now there's an idea, I'll try that next time. Thanks. 

It keeps getting reported to me (by Sky Tools) as "easy", but it still eludes me.

Depends how good your skies are to start with, I've glimpsed it from home on a good night with the 10"SCT.

And a GoTo helps to know you're actually in the right spot 

Dave

[mariosi]

NGC 6826 Blinking planetary nebula, 

(also known as Caldwell 15) is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Cygnus. It is commonly referred to as the "blinking planetary", although many other nebulae exhibit such "blinking". When viewed through a small telescope, the brightness of the central star overwhelms the eye when viewed directly, obscuring the surrounding nebula. However, it can be viewed well using averted vision, which causes it to "blink" in and out of view as the observer's eye wanders(Wikipedia).

Right ascension 19h 44m 48.2s
Declination +50° 31′ 30.3″
Distance ~2000 ly
Apparent magnitude (V) 8.8
Apparent dimensions (V) 27″ × 24″
Constellation Cygnus

DATE: 14/8/15 
DAY: Friday 
SCOPE: 200mm S/W 1200/f6 
EYEPIECES: 9mm UW S/W 66°
Mammari

Regards 

Marios

[Littleguy80]

The main things I look for when trying to spot the blinking planetary is a star that is fuzzy when compared to other nearby stars and has a slightly green tint to it. The colour isn’t always obvious but the fuzziness normally is. From memory there’s a star quite close to it which is the one to focus on to get the blinking effect. Look at the star and the planetary appears, look at the planetary and it disappears. Good luck, it’s a fun target when you find it  

[des anderson]

A great object to track down, it took me a about 4 goes with the goto to find it and when it jumped into view afterwards it became easy to spot it. Happy hunting. Des

[festoon]

9 hours ago, des anderson said:

A great object to track down, it took me a about 4 goes with the goto to find it and when it jumped into view afterwards it became easy to spot it. Happy hunting. Des

Completely agree, this is a great object to find, and my kids found it fascinating too

I had not heard of it before and it was listed on my synscan deep sky tour a couple of weeks ago. Used the GOTO and amazingly - there it was blinking at me fading in and out. I would not say it was difficult to find using my C8 with a 25mm eyepiece (x80 with 0.74 degree FOV). At the time I noticed the fading seemed to have a rather slow time period - possibly 2-3 seconds, and sometime the blinking effect appeared completely random, or when I started to move my eye away from the eyepiece.

I never realised that it was a planetary nebula and that the blinking effect was due to my averted vision until after my session and looking it up on Wikipedia I will definitely be going back to this one again

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I spotted it some years back, and found it quite easy with my C8. I have a Denkmeier Filter-Switch Diagonal, which allows me to slide filters in and out of the optical path. Swapping either an O-III or a UHC filter in and out clearly makes smaller PNs jump out at you as you switch from no filter to O-III or UHC.

[Pig]

This always makes me smile when I view it ? for some reason it tickles me as it appears and disappears.