That Veil Nebula is large

[mdstuart]

A dark sky, the milky way, Cynus overhead. Right lets find the Veil, so in with the 20mm and on with the OIII.

Yes right next to 52 Cyni and there it is, my first ever viewing. Its so bright compared to the galaxies I normally look at. Mesmerising.

So on to the other bit of the veil...And wow I start to draw and then move the 20mm and more appears and then move again and more appears. So unique for a DSO....

Finally number 190....Galaxy in Pegasus NGC 7217. Lovely and bright so a good end to the evening but wait is that my wife back from her police shift..

Yes so over to Jupiter...I can see three or four bands and lovely moons she says.

What about this I say turning to M13...Why do you always have to spoil it by making me look at more than one thing...

Well a good evening with the veil!!

Mark

[James]

The Veil is fantastic isn't it?

The first time I saw it was after putting an OIII filter on my eyepiece. It was such a surprise to see it suddenly appear I took a step backward. I often like starting at each end of each section and slowly slewing along admiring the view. I'd be too scared to try and draw all of the Veil as there's so much complexity visible.

James

[Doc]

Well done Mark.

I'm still to see it properly. I did see a few little wisps. But I do suffer alot of LP and my O111 makes everything Green.

Does your O111 turn the sky green?

[mdstuart]

Doc no not really. It is more purplish if anything. Are you sure its an OIII. My sky was relatively good as I can see the milky way. It is overhead so now is a good time but not tonight with the next rain on its way in. 150mm here in July which is well over average!

Mark

[Doc]

It says Baader Narrowband O111 on the filter.

[Talitha]

Wow, i remember my first look at the Veil.. it was magical the way it seemed to shimmer, maybe the seeing was bad or something. Thanks for sharing your first view, Mark.

James, i got the entire Veil, but the 80ST couldn't get to much detail. Any idea what scope would be able to place the entire remnant in the fov and have enough aperture to show details?

(Dear Santa... )

[Guest]

I have a 130mm F6 that with a 31mm Nagler will show the whole Veil (just) and some detail. I have not tried with a larger scope but I suspect that might be pushing it

[James]

The bigger the scope the smaller the focal ratio would have to be - a 150mm scope would need to be about f/4.4 and a 160mm would need to be f/4.25 (assuming the Veil is about 3.5 degrees in total?). I think I'll have a look and see if there's any out there that fit

James

[ollypenrice]

Wow, i remember my first look at the Veil.. it was magical the way it seemed to shimmer, maybe the seeing was bad or something. Thanks for sharing your first view, Mark.

James, i got the entire Veil, but the 80ST couldn't get to much detail. Any idea what scope would be able to place the entire remnant in the fov and have enough aperture to show details?

(Dear Santa... )

Hi,

I do have a setup here which can show the lot; it's an old TeleVue Genesis 4 inch f5 with 35 Panoptic and Baader O111 filter. Both arcs show clearly, though Pickerings Wisp would be on the optimistic side for my eyes. After taking it in like this I like to head for Sir Isaac, the 20 inch, with same EP & filter. With four times the focal length and 25 times the light grasp you have no trouble at all seeing all the photogrphic nebulosity, including the long isolated tail below the witch's broom. Pickering's seems almost as bright as the broom. However the FOV is slightly smaller than each arc so some roaming is called for.

The other night a guest handed me some quite small bins and said he thought he could see the Veil with them. I had never managed this myself in bins but had a go and, yes, it was true for me too. Unfortunately the bins turned out to be Leicas. Not fifteen quid from the Astrofest, then...

The Veil is so wonderful however you look at it, n'est-ce pas.

Olly

[JamesC]

Gaaah! You've just persuaded me I might want a filter. I've opened a thread on equipment help...

[Taff]

Hi Mark' Yes the neb is a nice sight to look at.The first time i saw it was with a neb filter with a 40mm EP which gave me a nice wide view.Mark

[John]

Nice report Mark !.

I love the Veil - with my Vixen ED102 (F/6.5) I can just about fit both the east and west arcs in a single FoV with my Nagler 31mm and Astronomik OIII filter. As with Olly I've yet to pick out Pickerings wisp with that scope though.

With a Baader UHC-S filter a couple of years ago on a superb night I was able to see the Veil with an 80mm F/5 refractor so I guess it's possible with big binoculars.

The Veil is one of those objects that is rewarding at each viewing I find

John

[JamesC]

Got my first view of the Veil with my 10x50s last week - magic! Could make out the brighter bit as a faint bracket of light. Also observed the North America nebula for the first time (while knowing what I was looking at).

Got another view of the Veil on Friday night with my binoculars before turning my Starblast on it. Still couldn't make out the other arc (the one by Kappa 52 Cygni), but I didn't tarry very long before popping in my newly aquired Baader UHC-S filter. The filter helped quite a bit and I could easily make out both arcs. I wasn't convinced I could see anything in the middle as there are quite a few small stars in the region. With low power I could frame the whole thing, although the starblast does suffer quite a bit from coma near the edges, so it's probably not best suited to viewing something where all the structure is at the edge. After removing the filter again, the bit by 52 cygni was still obvious, so I can't have looked very hard at first. I imagined I could also see the fainter arc in my binoculars once I knew what I was looking for, but perhaps it really was my imagination! Looking forward to exploring it further with my 12".

[John]

Got my first view of the Veil with my 10x50s last week - magic! Could make out the brighter bit as a faint bracket of light. Also observed the North America nebula for the first time (while knowing what I was looking at).

Wow James - you must have dark skies !.

I thought I was doing pretty well seeing the Veil with an 80mm scope - were your binoculars filtered ? - even with my 12" dob I can only just detect the brightest parts of the Veil without a filter.

Good going

John

[JamesC]

You're right, it was certainly the dark skies and not my eyesight, which is pretty ropey. I usually drive out to Dartmoor to observe, which is dark but probably not as dark as you imagine. There are plenty of villages and buildings with annoying bright lights, but it's still better than most of the country.

My binoculars were unfiltered and not that great either. They're about 16 years old, the two halves are not quite co-aligned, and the contrast is noticeably worse than your average modern binocular. The main reason I put up with them is most modern binoculars don't have enough inward travel to correct my dreadful short-sightedness! To be fair SQRT(2 * 50**2)=70, so the light grasp probably isn't far off an 80mm scope.