Thanks for posting your observations Paul. I noticed you observed IC 4406. I had a look at this one during the second last clear night 6 million years ago:
This was with a 10" scope on April 3 this year.
IC 4406
PNe, Lupus, RA= 14 22 26.4, Dec= -44º 09' 04" , Size= 102x36" , Mag V= 10.3
Appeared bright at 156x, and forms a lopsided triangle with two 12th mag stars 2' to the NW. A thick, wide apple-core shape could be seen, with the long axis orientated N-S. Bright, but lacks any colour. At 250x, this feature exibited fainter extensions either side along its E-W axis, each stretching roughly half of the diameter of the apple core outwards. Despite poor seeing, I upped the mag to 353x and suspected mottling in the apple core, while the OIII filter enhanced the mottling. The outer extensions could now be glimpsed slightly further out aswell.
DSS images show a bizzare cucumber shaped thing, which apparently is a Cheerio viewed edge on.
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M104 must be the best example of a dust lane galaxy anywhere in the sky, it is just so bright and in your face!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paddy
Nice descriptions Paul. From your directions, it sounds like we have a similar way of navigating - "a line from gamma through phi about the same distance but a bit bent" sounds like the kind of thing I mutter to myself over charts at night.
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I always find myself using triangles, crosses, zigzags, curves etc of stars, its weird how the brain intreprets a seemingly random field into useful shapes and asterisms.