Ngc 2818, 3132, 3918

[simmo]

Date: 20/01/2014
Time: 9:30-11pm
Location: SE Perth suburb
Instrument: 10" SW dobsonian
Conditions: warm night with slight breeze
Seeing: nice night with plenty of stars visible with not much twinkling.
Eyepieces: 25, 12.5, 9 & 6 mm UO orthos. 67, 96, 133, 200x magnification

Object: NGC 2818 PN

Constellation: Pyxis
Magnitude: 11.19
Size: 9 arcmin
Ra: 9h 16m 35.88s
Dec: -36deg 40' 41.3"

Notes: very hard to find PN from suburbia. Seems to have a low surface brightness. Star hopped to find the relative position and thought that it might not be able to be viewed. Almost gave up but decided to switch out the 25mm to 12.5mm and was rewarded after taking a little time at the eyepiece. Very faint grey smudge appeared. Swapped for the 9mm and was able to make it out the detail a little more. No bright centre for this PN and resembles more a irregular shaped galaxy at the eyepiece. Still happy to find this one and was a real challenge for the night.

Object: NGC 3132 PN (Eight Burst Nebula)

Constellation: Vela
Magnitude: 9.69
Size: 1 x 0.7 arcmin
Ra: 10h 7min 38.37s
Dec: -40deg 30' 25.6"

Notes: very nice PN to look at. Not very much colour mostly grey but the contrast of detail makes this one stand out. The bright central star is easily seen in the centre and can be seen surrounded by the cast off outer shell. Quite easy to locate and responds well to increasing magnification. Went up to 200x easily.

Object: NGC 3918 PN (Blue Planetary)

Constellation: Centuarus
Magnitude: 8.19
Size: 0.3 arcmin
Ra: 11h 51m 2.41s
Dec: -57 deg 15' 37.2"

Notes: very easy PN to find and we'll worth it too as the colour of this one is spectacular at low magnifications. Not much detail to be seen. Looks like a small disk but is a vibrant blue with perhaps a small amount of green. Increasing the magnification diminishes the colour but not the brightness and it becomes quite vivid the higher you go.

Comments: was really looking forward to this night as I hadn't had much of a chance since last time looking for PNs. This time I used sky safari to locate the objects on an iPad which was a little hard to get used to at first. The screen is a little hard to look at in red with the smaller stars a little hard to see. This was only mildly frustrating when star hopping but I think it may have been that I needed to adjust a little after stellarium. By the end of the night I was cruising along merrily and found it much easier. Each of the PNs were a great find each in their own way and I would recommend hunting them down.

Thanks for reading
Simmo

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Nicely done Simmo!
NGC 2818 is a lovely PN. I believe it is nestled in the Open Cluster Mel96, and in my notes I have compared the view to M46. If you like PN have a go at M46 as the PN (NGC 2438) is really nice there. NGC 2818 is extended EW so see if you can detect that next time.

Malcolm

[simmo]

Thanks Malcolm.

I'm going out again tonight to chase a few things down so I've put M46 down as I'm starting somewhere close to that area. I'll see if I can fit NGC 2818 in again, not sure I'll get it but I'll be swinging back that way later in the night. Should have time in the morning to put another report up on the board. Really enjoying hunting for PNs at the moment and it is interesting to find that they are all slightly different. Makes the mystery of what you will see all the more exciting.

Simmo

[Paddy (Patrick)]

Nice report Simmo. I reckon NGC 3132 is one of the best PN in the sky. Looking at my notes spreadsheet it's a few years since I've looked at 2818 - will have to revisit it!