M97 Owl Planetary Nebula

[DarkerSky]

Spent a good couple of hours on the Owl Nebula M97 with my 16" on Monday night and got this sketch:

16" x228 magnification

TFOV 0.30 degrees

Neodymium filter

As you can see it was huge in the eyepiece. A ghostly disc of light that was overall quite faint really. I had used my OIII filter to make it brighter, but didn't get as much of the finer detail in the eyepeice as without it.

Finer detail: The owl's eyes were only just visible occasionally with averted vision. Really quite difficult to pick up, even with this aperture. The southern eye was darker and better defined than the northern eye, and there was a brighter area to the disc around to the NE. Several times I managed to see M97's central star, mostly with averted vision, but a handful of times with direct vision too. Also picked up two other stars within the disc's ghostly hue - superimposed stars I guess?

Overall it was a very exciting observation, and really enjoyed recording this one

[Talitha]

That's perfect, Seb!!! It's almost exactly what i saw tonight.

I tried the Zhumell UHC, and two O-III filters (Zhumell and Lumicon). Surprisingly, the Zhumell UHC gave the best view at 114x. The eyes definitely needed averted vision, but they repeatedly popped in when viewed with my averted sweet spot.

This was the first time i'd tried kicking the power up in order to see the eyes... can't wait to view them again when there's no moonwash.

[callisto]

Wonderful sketch

[oldfruit]

Nice sketch. I was observing this visually too a week or so ago but was only using an 8inch newt. I could not make out the eyes at all, but as you say, it does appear quite large and ghostly in the eyepiece.

[paul mc c]

Iwas also observing this last week using a 12'' dob,couldnt see it at first,used a UHC filter and it jumped out,though couldnt make the eyes out either,great sketch

[Doc]

A great sketch Seb

[DarkerSky]

Thanks all. Really enjoying my sketching right now