Lost in Cygnus

[Littleguy80]

Inspired by reports from @scarp15 and @jetstream, I loaded up the car and headed out to the dark site with plans to explore nebula in Cygnus. I'd had a nice session Friday but transparency had been variable, limiting what could be seen. There wasn't much moisture in the air when I arrived. A quick look at Jupiter and Saturn to check all was working as expected. I spent a little time on the Helix nebula to get my nebula eyes on and then went straight up to Cygnus. My previous explorations of the Gamma Cygni region had been done with an OIII filter. This time I decided to switch to the Lumicon UHC filter. Starting at Sadr and moving straight to the Butterfly nebula and immediately I felt that the UHC was working better than the OIII. The nebula was brighter and seemed to be better defined. Nebulosity seemed to trail down from it so I followed this as far as I could. Then back up to the Butterfly and off in a different direction. Not really tracking where I was going, I spotted bright nebulosity and then realised it was the Crescent nebula. Easy to follow the full curve though I'm yet to catch the fine filaments within it. Not sure if this is a question of aperture, conditions or simply practise. Gerry, @jetstream, has posted on the Tulip nebula recently so this became my next target. Images of this nebula show it to be quite bright but I found this to be a tougher spot. Most of the observing so far had been done with my APM HDC 20mm but I now switched to the ES82 30mm to increase the exit pupil. This helped draw the Tulip out a little more. I tried both the UHC and OIII but notice much difference in the views between the two. Back to Sadr and I explorered further, passing the lovely open cluster NGC 6910. I hit upon another bright patch of IC1318, but where exactly was I? Lots of head scratching and looking at SkySafari and I finally  decided I was somewhere around the star HD 228911, though looking at images this morning I'm not sure that's correct. It seemed to be quite a large extended patch of nebulosity. After this, I decided not to worry about identifying what I was seeing and happily roamed around looking for sections of the nebula. The Lumicon UHC proving to be an excellent tool for this. It was a really enjoyable way to observe, just looking around to see what caught my eye. I generally decide on a target and go off to find it so this made a refreshing change of pace.

After this I toured around some favourites such as the Little Gem Nebula, Wild Ducks (M11), Barnard's E (B142/B142), Iris nebula, Merope nebula and Neptune with it's faint little moon, Triton. I returned to Cygnus before leaving to explore the NAN with the Lumicon UHC plus a couple planetary nebula, NGC7026 and NGC7027. It had gotten very damp by this point so I finished up with some views of Mars and then headed home happy.

[jetstream]

Excellent observing and report Neil!

Great catch on the Tulip. I think I'll revisit the Wizard and go for SH2-132, the Lion- you up for a visit to Cepheus?

My little 200mm dobs works pretty good up there, that is when I can find Cepheus lol!

[Littleguy80]

47 minutes ago, jetstream said:

Excellent observing and report Neil!

Great catch on the Tulip. I think I'll revisit the Wizard and go for SH2-132, the Lion- you up for a visit to Cepheus?

My little 200mm dobs works pretty good up there, that is when I can find Cepheus lol!

Thanks Gerry. Really appreciate the suggestions and tips. I love a challenge so Cehpheus it is

lol I've read reports of people struggling to find the main stars of Cassiopeia because there are so many stars. Hard to imagine even with the 21+ SQM skies at my dark site. 

[jetstream]

14 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Hard to imagine even with the 21+ SQM skies at my dark site. 

Rain washed skies really help or over here snow, it takes dust etc out of the atmosphere for a bit. Looking clear tonight so Cepheus it is lol!

[scarp15]

Great, that refreshes my own memory roaming through Gamma Cygni. You got some good conditions Neil, with a lovely assortment of targets. My own evening had been of two halves with transparency better earlier on and later moisture becoming too problematic. Good that you were able to verify an improvement in defination and brightness using a Lumicon UHC in comparison to an OIII in that region. Yes exit pupil on selective subjects counts for a lot, a 5.09mm exit pupil; 31 Pan as ever worked well for myself. I think next time I get to observe in this region, I will use a H-beta on the Butterfly and The Dolphin (IC1318A). Also have a go for the Propeller. Interesting account concerning the Tulip to. In the fullness of the session, you certainly got to explore a wide range of targets and yes looks like you ended up with dank issues to.

[Littleguy80]

25 minutes ago, scarp15 said:

Great, that refreshes my own memory roaming through Gamma Cygni. You got some good conditions Neil, with a lovely assortment of targets. My own evening had been of two halves with transparency better earlier on and later moisture becoming too problematic. Good that you were able to verify an improvement in defination and brightness using a Lumicon UHC in comparison to an OIII in that region. Yes exit pupil on selective subjects counts for a lot, a 5.09mm exit pupil; 31 Pan as ever worked well for myself. I think next time I get to observe in this region, I will use a H-beta on the Butterfly and The Dolphin (IC1318A). Also have a go for the Propeller. Interesting account concerning the Tulip to. In the fullness of the session, you certainly got to explore a wide range of targets and yes looks like you ended up with dank issues to.

Thanks Iain. Yep, there was a definite turning point where the dew became an issue. The dew heaters kept me going for awhile longer. I’ll have to look the dolphin up, I wonder whether that was the section of nebulosity that I haven’t identified. I forgot to mention in the report there I tried an H-Beta on the butterfly. I felt it lost a bit compared to the UHC. However, it’s a new target to me so there may have been some extra detail revealed that I missed. I’ll add the propellor to the list for next time. 

[scarp15]

Yes I was wondering whether that might be the target you were unsure of as it is separate from other areas, was trying to find that star you mentioned on Stellarium. Applying a H-beta filter into the light path, may as you say diminish the image, could open up the exit pupil a bit more, think next time I will employ a 41 Pan for a substantial 7.73mm ep, but the UHC did strike a balance and was satisfying enough. The Propeller is supposed to respond to a H-beta filter, once again perhaps a large exit pupil would help here.

[ozzy21]

Great adventurous night. 

Thanks for sharing.

However, I think that you confused Butterfly neb, which is in Scorpio with IC 1318, which is the nebulae around Sadr (γ Cygni).

[Littleguy80]

53 minutes ago, ozzy21 said:

Great adventurous night. 

Thanks for sharing.

However, I think that you confused Butterfly neb, which is in Scorpio with IC 1318, which is the nebulae around Sadr (γ Cygni).

Thank you. Yes, there’s a section in IC1308 which looks very much like a butterfly. I have to admit I didn’t check if that was it’s official designation or not. 

[jetstream]

2 hours ago, ozzy21 said:

Great adventurous night. 

Thanks for sharing.

However, I think that you confused Butterfly neb, which is in Scorpio with IC 1318, which is the nebulae around Sadr (γ Cygni).

Not sure if it is an official name but it is a common one, that is the Butterfly nebula in IC1318

from wiki:

The Sadr Region (also known as IC 1318 or the Gamma Cygni Nebula) is the diffuse emission nebula surrounding Sadr (γ Cygni) at the center of Cygnus's cross. The Sadr Region is one of the surrounding nebulous regions; others include the Butterfly Nebula and the Crescent Nebula. It contains many dark nebulae in addition to the emission diffuse nebulae.

Sadr itself has approximately a magnitude of 2.2. The nebulous regions around the region are also fairly bright."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadr_Region