NGC 7354: New to me and a nice surprise

[John]

Nice dark night here and I'm busy touring the sky with my 12 inch dobsonian.

I was using Stellarium as my guide and had picked off a number of the brighter planetary nebulae.

The software was showing the planetary NGC 7354 in Cepheus which was well placed high in the sky. I can't recall observing this one before so hopped to it using a helpful triangle of stars with the variable star Delta Cephei at it's point.

After a little scanning around at 70x magnification I spotted a suspect faint blob. I was using a zoom eyepiece so I could just dial in some more magnification and at around 200x the pale roughly circular patch of light was quite nicely defined. It looked rather like a miniature version of M97, the Owl Nebula.

UHC and O-III filters made it pop out more and some suggestions of texture started to show across it's face.

So a nice planetary nebula which is new to me.

What I was a little surprised to find though was that NGC 7354 is not shown in my S&T Pocket Sky Atlas. While not the brightest PN, it was not too hard to find and, once found, stood out rather well I thought.

It's listed at magnitude 12ish on some web references with even fainter surface brightness but it did not seem that faint tonight. My estimate would be around mag 11ish.

It's well worth looking for if you have a 10 inch or larger aperture I think. I've added a finder chart from theskylive.com below showing it's general location:

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

An interesting find John. This PN does not appear in my list of 666 bright DSOs. However, it is an object in Steve O'Meara's 'The Secret Deep' - No.106. In his book he is using a 5" Frac and at 33x the PN was readily visible with averted vision.

I also found that the PN is recorded as one of the best 100 to observe - http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/plannebs.html

I observed this PN in August 2016 so a return would be appropriate.

 

 

[RobertI]

Interesting object John. Also not shown in my Cambridge Star Atlas, but Interstellarum shows it in the "visible in 8" scopes" category. Might sniff it out.  

[DeepSkyBagger]

Hi John. NGC 7354 is indeed a fine object. I don't have the atlas you mentioned, so I can't comment on that. I observed the planetary with a 12" reflector, like yourself, and found it to be very bright and very large. It appeared round and smooth-looking, brighter towards the middle but the central star (m16.1) was not seen.

Attached is my observation.