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After several days of contradictory cloud forecasts from the ever-unreliable ClearOutside app, I made my way to Warwick last night with SEQAS. The skies were magnificent and clear until the clouds began rolling in around 1.30am, but it was my bedtime then anyway as it was freezing.
I checked out a few of the more noteworthy PN's: Ring, Dumbbell, Skull, Bug, etc. I had the Ring at 500x trying to spot the central star – a challenge laid down by Stephen James O’Meara in this month’s Astronomy magazine, but apart from a brief moment of averted imagination, I think I drew a blank. I then then decided to try a few of the less well-known versions. I was using SkySafari to list all PN's, then was simply going to ones I've never seen before. There's a reason they're not well known - generally they're pretty hard to spot and aren’t especially mind-blowing, even with a filter and a good idea of the local star layout, but there's a certain satisfaction is nabbing them nonetheless. Excuse the brief descriptions - it was too cold to have hands exposed for any longer than necessary. Equipment was a 20” GOTO dob, 8-24mm Baader Zoom, 3-6mm Nagler zoom, Lumicon OIII filter and DGM NPB filter.
Minkowski 3-34 VM +12.6: Faint stellar dot
YM 16 VM +13.0:Very faint stellar dot
Sharpless 2-17 VM +12.3: stellar dot
Minkowski 1-66 VM +13.3: dim blue stellar dot
PK 033-05.1 VM +13.19: very pale faint grey puff, needs OIII and averted vision.
NGC 6778 VM +12.1: Not quite stellar sized blue-grey mottled disc with a blurred edge
NGC 6790 VM +10.69: Stellar dot
Merrill 2-2 VM +11.5: tiny faint stellar dot.
NGC 7662 Blue Snowball VM +8.30: Intense bright blue ball of good size, OIII suggests fainter outer nebulosity
NGC 6565 VM +11.39: small dot, needs OIII to really pop out.
NGC 261 VM +13.0: small bright puff of nebulosity
NGC 6072 VM +11.3: reasonable sized grey disc easily seen. No real distinct edges – blurs towards the edge.
Cannon 1-1 VM +12.89: Stellar dot
Henize 2-118 VM +12.69: small dot, OIII helps to resolve it.
NGC 5873 VM +11.19: Quite small but relatively bright ball
Wray 16-210 VM +12.0: small but quite bright grey disc with a hint of elongation and rim brightening.
Henize 2-141 VM +12.3: very small grey blob, needs OIII.
Wray 16-183 VM +12.00: small grey disc with a suggestion of a dark hole in the centre. An image on Skysafari confirms a donut/ring-like appearance.
ESO 3-0 VM +11.35: tiny faint mottled splodge.
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