Size and magnitude of Nebula?

[Manok101]

So I saw my first planetary nebula last night, and I noticed how tiny it was, it took a 6mm EP to figure out that it was indeed a PN. I also went online later and did a search of shots that people had done of it to also confirm. My question for the size is, is there someplace I can go for a list of size? All I have ever seen in info is the apparent magnitude, unless I am misunderstanding the little info sheets. Now that being said, I've seen the Eskimo listed as an apparent magnitude of 10 I expected something hard to see. It wasn't hard, just very very tiny. Was it my 10" that was making it bright enough to see?

[Demonperformer]

NGC/IC Project Public Database

[Mr Spock]

Try Cartes du Ciel. Once you have the deep sky catalogues installed you have access to every object you could possible see. Select the object and it gives you size, magnitude etc.

[Mr Spock]

Here's a crop from CdC to show what you get:

[ollypenrice]

Or an alternative to Mr Spock's suggestion, Chris Marriot's SkyMap Pro, a compendious planetarium. I love it.

Magnitudes on extended objects don't tell you much about how easy they are to see because it is the integrated magnitude of the whole that is quoted. The surface brightness of any one part can be very low, classic examples being M33 and M101.

The Helix is another very diffuse customer. I remember staring into the EP of our 10 inch when I was sure I was in the right place and seeing nothing. After a while I realized that it was completely filling the eyepiece...

Olly