After a period with heavy rain yesterday evening brought clear skies. Because of a steady wind from the east and some haze I decided not to bring my scope along to one of my dark observing sites, but set up the scope on my balcony just to do some maintenance of it and collimate the optics.
Winds from the east normally means poor seeing at my site. However, a quick check on Epsilon Lyrae and Pi Aquilae showed that conditions were much better than I expected. When seeing conditions are poor, images appear soft even at 63x magnification, but this time the 9mm Nagler (167x) gave sharp stellar points. Therefore I decided to spend an hour or so observing.
My balcony is directly exposed to light from several high-pressure sodium lamps. There is, however, still leaves on the birch trees in my garden blocking away much of it. There were other disturbing light sources too (including the moon rising in the north-east), therefore conditions were not perfect for deep sky observation. Limiting magnitude near zenith was around 5.
Still I decided to look for some nebulae in the Cygnus - Cepheus region.
I never observed planetary NGC40 before. It forms an (almost) isosceles triangle with Gamma and Pi Cephei, and it turned out that it was pretty easy to find it using these stars as a reference. It was moderately bright, and was not much enhanced by the O-III filter.
Using Alpha and Beta Cephei I located an interesting reflection nebula, NGC7129-33. This nebula is illuminated by four moderately bright stars, and it was obvious at first glance. This is a rather small nebula, and I found it beneficial to increase the magnification from 63 to 115x.
Just to get acquainted with the region I pointed the scope at the position of the Cocoon nebula. I messed around a bit with and without the O-III filter, but saw nothing. I guess it requiers darker and more transparent skies.
Then I tried to find the planetary, NGC7048. I was pretty sure of its position, but couldn't see it before applying the O-III. Removing the filter again, it was barely visible. With the filter it was a very nice, round nebula with a star on its edge.
NGC7027 a bit further to the south-west was much brighter. It is, however, possible to miss this object too because it is so small. At 63x it looks like a blue star, just slightly out of focus. Its true nature becomes more obvious at higher magnification, but I have never seen any structure in this planetary.
As a "grande finale" of the planetary session I reviewed the three great objects, NGC6826 (Blinking planetary), M57 and M27. After spending the time with faint and small nebulae, observing the show objects was almost an overwhelming experience.
For people wanting to investigate the effects of the O-III filter, M27 may be an interesting object. The nebula appears quite differently when the filter is applied.
Of course I also observed the Veil. The segment north of 52 Cygni could just be made out without a filter, while nothing could be seen south of it. With the filter much more detail appears, even under mediocre conditions like yesterday evening.
Inge S
Winds from the east normally means poor seeing at my site. However, a quick check on Epsilon Lyrae and Pi Aquilae showed that conditions were much better than I expected. When seeing conditions are poor, images appear soft even at 63x magnification, but this time the 9mm Nagler (167x) gave sharp stellar points. Therefore I decided to spend an hour or so observing.
My balcony is directly exposed to light from several high-pressure sodium lamps. There is, however, still leaves on the birch trees in my garden blocking away much of it. There were other disturbing light sources too (including the moon rising in the north-east), therefore conditions were not perfect for deep sky observation. Limiting magnitude near zenith was around 5.
Still I decided to look for some nebulae in the Cygnus - Cepheus region.
I never observed planetary NGC40 before. It forms an (almost) isosceles triangle with Gamma and Pi Cephei, and it turned out that it was pretty easy to find it using these stars as a reference. It was moderately bright, and was not much enhanced by the O-III filter.
Using Alpha and Beta Cephei I located an interesting reflection nebula, NGC7129-33. This nebula is illuminated by four moderately bright stars, and it was obvious at first glance. This is a rather small nebula, and I found it beneficial to increase the magnification from 63 to 115x.
Just to get acquainted with the region I pointed the scope at the position of the Cocoon nebula. I messed around a bit with and without the O-III filter, but saw nothing. I guess it requiers darker and more transparent skies.
Then I tried to find the planetary, NGC7048. I was pretty sure of its position, but couldn't see it before applying the O-III. Removing the filter again, it was barely visible. With the filter it was a very nice, round nebula with a star on its edge.
NGC7027 a bit further to the south-west was much brighter. It is, however, possible to miss this object too because it is so small. At 63x it looks like a blue star, just slightly out of focus. Its true nature becomes more obvious at higher magnification, but I have never seen any structure in this planetary.
As a "grande finale" of the planetary session I reviewed the three great objects, NGC6826 (Blinking planetary), M57 and M27. After spending the time with faint and small nebulae, observing the show objects was almost an overwhelming experience.
For people wanting to investigate the effects of the O-III filter, M27 may be an interesting object. The nebula appears quite differently when the filter is applied.
Of course I also observed the Veil. The segment north of 52 Cygni could just be made out without a filter, while nothing could be seen south of it. With the filter much more detail appears, even under mediocre conditions like yesterday evening.
Inge S
