Cygnus with 200P

[OK Apricot]

Hey guys,  

A few nights ago I was trying to lay eyes on the veil, NA neb etc for the first time. I was confident I was in the right place but I couldn't glimpse any nebulousity. I'm not sure how far the 200P will go here - I was using a 42mm EP for the wider field of view, sky was Bortle 4-5 and nicely transparent. Will this sort of target need filters? Do I need more light grasp? What can I expect here? 

[Nik271]

Hi James, 

Of these I think the eastern veil is the easiest.

You need about 2 degree field of view to fit it in. The light grasp of 200p should be more than enough. Filters help a lot especially Oiii.

I saw the veil and parts of NAN two nights ago with a 4 inch refractor, helped by its wide field view.

I recall @Kon managed to see many parts of the Cygnus nebs using an 8 inch Dob, perhaps he can advise.

[markse68]

I've only managed to see the Veil a couple of times with an 8" scope but it required an Oiii as Nik mentioned, and really good transparency- first time from Bortle 4-5 and then once I knew what to look for I amazed myself by spotting it on a really good night from my home bortle 8/9! But only the once haha

Mark

[Captain Scarlet]

I first saw the Veil with a Heritage 130 and Oiii filter, and more recently with my 200mm newt. I have no doubt that I’ll be able for it with my 105mm refractor too when the opportunity presents itself. All with the Oiii filter though, and at a quite dark location, 21.8. Through my 200, I could not see it after removing the filter, despite my dark skies.

Magnus

[spike95609]

I've got similar skies to yourself but have never seen the veil without a filter in my 10" scope. With an OIII on though it's like someone's flicked a light switch, as it's suddenly there and really quite clear, and on some better nights it's revealed a fair amount of detail.

[OK Apricot]

It was the Eastern and Western areas in particular that I was looking for. May have to look into Oiii then!

Out of curiosity what are peoples experiences with 12" mirrors? 16"? 

[Kon]

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

Hi James, 

Of these I think the eastern veil is the easiest.

You need about 2 degree field of view to fit it in. The light grasp of 200p should be more than enough. Filters help a lot especially Oiii.

I saw the veil and parts of NAN two nights ago with a 4 inch refractor, helped by its wide field view.

I recall @Kon managed to see many parts of the Cygnus nebs using an 8 inch Dob, perhaps he can advise.

You remember very well Nik.

@OK ApricotI have managed to see the Cygnus area nebulas with my 8" Dob at bortle 3/4; I think if you can see the milky way you should be able to get some nice details. The NAN needed an OIII filter and I could make both the NAN and Gulf of Mexico. The Crescent was just about visible with the filter. The Veil needed an OIII but at exceptional night of transparency and seeing it was visible even without one but the filter did bring a lot more features.

I looked at the Veil this year again and I think having the experience of visual has helped to see a lot more details and a lot easier.

I do not have an UHC filter to compare (I am on the market for one).

Some of my reports are here:

 

 

I am currently visiting family in Athens on holidays and I can hardly see any stars (forget about the milky way), so I really miss my dark UK site.

Let us know how you get along.

 

 

[Kon]

On

1 hour ago, Captain Scarlet said:

I first saw the Veil with a Heritage 130 and Oiii filter, and more recently with my 200mm newt. I have no doubt that I’ll be able for it with my 105mm refractor too when the opportunity presents itself. All with the Oiii filter though, and at a quite dark location, 21.8. Through my 200, I could not see it after removing the filter, despite my dark skies.

Magnus

In my experience it is possible to see it with averted vision once you know where it is but it is transparency and seeing dependent.

[Pixies]

I saw the Veil a few nights ago for the first time. Using an 8" dob with a couple of wide-angle 2" EPs. One was 40mm 72deg (2.36deg FOV) and the other a 28mm 82deg (1.8deg FOV).  I could only get the west or east parts separately, not both together.

It was clearer with an Oiii filter, the east part especially. Once I had seen them with the filter, I could just make them out without, since I knew what I was looking for. This is a Bortle-6 sky.

[bingevader]

I've seen the Veil nebula through my 8" and a UHC filter, so it is definitely possible.

I now have a Oiii filter, but haven't had the chance to try it on the Veil yet.

[wookie1965]

When I had my 8" I saw the nebula with a UHC filter and a trick is to get NGC 6992 in the FOV if you have goto dial in NGC 6995 and keep looking through the eyepiece the mount will follow the curve of the nebula really neat.

[badhex]

I have managed the Eastern veil, just, with a ZS73 and Oiii filter from a tiny Bortle 3 volcanic island in Greece (although it was quite a bright moon unfortunately).

One thing I found useful was to take a couple of images of the Veil from the web and play around with the saturation/brightness/contrast until the main features were just about visible, which I hoped would give a good proxy for what to expect. Not very scientific but it sort of worked, as this is approximately what I saw (although definitely fainter, as I couldn't make out the western part).

 

 

[astronymonkey]

16 hours ago, OK Apricot said:

It was the Eastern and Western areas in particular that I was looking for. May have to look into Oiii then!

Out of curiosity what are peoples experiences with 12" mirrors? 16"? 

In a 16inch its a stand out object and one of those things you can sp3nd a lot of time on. Low power wide field isn't always possible with the longer focal length of bigger mirror so you can never see it all in one go I  the eyepiece.

In a dark site with an Oiii it's probably one of the best objects to look at with a large aperture scope due to all the detail you can pull out. I remember spending about an hour on it at a star camp a few years ago with a queue of observers at the eyepiece.

Dark skies, no moon, its spectacular and i would say its brighter than the photos Badhex has posted above.

[badhex]

1 hour ago, astronymonkey said:

Dark skies, no moon, its spectacular and i would say its brighter than the photos Badhex has posted above.

Oh yeah, I'm certain it can be much better than the above - I was only using a 73mm and to be honest I barely caught it at all

[Stu]

19 hours ago, OK Apricot said:

Out of curiosity what are peoples experiences with 12" mirrors? 16"? 

On this topic, this post of mine might be of interest, made using a 14” truss dob and also a 72mm refractor.

You’ve had plenty of great advice already, so I’m probably just repeating what has already been said. A decent OIII filter is well worth investing in to give excellent views of the Veil and NAN; it’s worth the price for just these two objects alone but will help with many others too.

Dark skies, excellent transparency and properly dark adapted eyes are the keys to getting good views, more so than the scope used in my opinion. If you keep the exit pupil large then even a small scope will work well under the right conditions, the main difference will be the field of view which you see. I’ve seen the NAN very clearly with filtered binoculars and at least the Eastern Veil although I can’t recall if I got the Western part.

Don’t underestimate the time required for proper dark adaptation under dark skies, up to an hour still makes a difference I think. In poorer skies with surrounding glare, an observing hood, or just a towel will make a difference to the visibility of these objects.

With a large dob it is not possible to get the whole of these objects in the field, but what you do get is amazing, detailed views of the nebula. With a wide field refractor you can fit the whole lot in, but see much less detail. I find both views equally rewarding, they just give very different perspectives. My favourite widefield scope is my Genesis, which has a flat field and 500mm focal length so with a 31mm nagler gives a five degree field of view. For higher power pretty much any dob will do!

Enjoy!

[astronymonkey]

1 hour ago, badhex said:

Oh yeah, I'm certain it can be much better than the above - I was only using a 73mm and to be honest I barely caught it at all

Hi Badhex, it's good to try to show what is visible in the way you have, as often views get over stated along with what is achievable as the aperture gets bigger. 

If this is what you can see with 73mm I'd say the OP would get slightly brighter views but with increased magnification due to the longer focal length.

I must admit I've never looked at the veil in the 200p I have but this post has prompted me into having a go with it.

Cheers

 

[Stu]

6 hours ago, badhex said:

I have managed the Eastern veil, just, with a ZS73 and Oiii filter from a tiny Bortle 3 volcanic island in Greece (although it was quite a bright moon unfortunately).

One thing I found useful was to take a couple of images of the Veil from the web and play around with the saturation/brightness/contrast until the main features were just about visible, which I hoped would give a good proxy for what to expect. Not very scientific but it sort of worked, as this is approximately what I saw (although definitely fainter, as I couldn't make out the western part).

 

 

I tried to do a similar thing some time ago. It’s actually surprisingly hard to get an accurate representation of what you can see!

 

[badhex]

38 minutes ago, Stu said:

I tried to do a similar thing some time ago. It’s actually surprisingly hard to get an accurate representation of what you can see!

 

Definitely. I started thinking about it initially as an aid to identifying what I might see, knowing what I've experienced with other faint nebulae. It occurred to me that it's a bit like when you have those setup screens for video games where there's a faint logo, and you adjust the gamma slider until you can just barely make it out. 

[badhex]

1 hour ago, astronymonkey said:

Hi Badhex, it's good to try to show what is visible in the way you have, as often views get over stated along with what is achievable as the aperture gets bigger. 

If this is what you can see with 73mm I'd say the OP would get slightly brighter views but with increased magnification due to the longer focal length.

I must admit I've never looked at the veil in the 200p I have but this post has prompted me into having a go with it.

Cheers

 

Thanks, yes it helped me a bit in finding what I was realistically looking for. 

As others have already said, whilst aperture obviously helps, the biggest improvement will be avoiding LP as much as possible and using a filter. On the night I managed to just get it, the moon was still lower down and somewhat hidden, but once it has risen further I wasn't able to get it again.

These large faint objects can be washed out by even fairly modest light pollution, and no amount of (unfiltered) aperture can really fix that as it will only pick up the background light, so the filter plus large exit pupil is I think fairly necessary in locations with medium (or worse) LP. 

[OK Apricot]

Wow, got home from work to this... Thanks so much for the insight guys, really helpful! Definitely going to be purchasing Oiii and see what I can get up to. 

The large aperture dob is a bucket list thing so the reading was interesting. Took a lot of control to not buy the one at PAS earlier this year 🤣

[astronymonkey]

I went from a 200p to a 16inch which was a huge leap in light grasp but a huge step back in practicality.

The big scope sees more when fully set up over a weekend of star camps but pound for pound the ease of use of the 200p makes it more likely to get taken outside at home. The 200 is a great scope 👍

 

[bosun21]

With light pollution present, increasing the aperture actually works against you ,as all your doing is capturing even more light pollution. OOPS I’m repeating what @badhex has already stated.

Edited August 23, 2022 by bosun21
Amendment