Hi Smirnoff & All,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smirnoff
You say that the central star of NGC 2022 is mag 15.8, I've seen mag 15.95 stars with my 12", however I doubt I'll catch the central star in NGC 2022, as my obs of such extremely faint stars have been done under exceptional winter transparency, while hunting galaxies in areas such as Pavo and Phoenix (i.e. almost directly overhead!!)
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Well there's that and the fact that the PNn (central star) is sitting within a (relatively) "bright" spot -- the PNe halo itself that makes it harder to see the faint star, rather than in native "uncluttered" sky.
Still, the halo of NGC 2022 is not
overly bright so I thought 15.8 was do-able in the 18". Can't discount the possibility of seeing it in 12 but much, much harder in that aperture I'd think.
You'd need quite dark sky
and very good seeing
and fairly high magnification at least to succeed and the concurrence of dark sky, and very good transparancy and good seeing is not all that common -- particularly at Vostok!
Best,
Les D