ARO 11 Anyone?

[EpickCrom]

Hello fellow observers!

I had a gander in Cygnus last night wandering the rich starfields in this northern constellation with my 10 inch dob. I can only go as far north as Sadr (Gamma Cygni) as the rest of the constellation is occulted by my neighbours roof.

I enjoyed looking at Albireo, beautiful colour contrast gold and blue. Some lovely starfields as you sweep down to Sadr. I located the planetary nebula ARO 11, also know as Campbell's Hydrogen Star for the first time last night. Gosh what a beaut! It looks stellar at 70x, starts becoming fuzzy at 133x and reveals its true nature at 300x. What is special about this object is it's colour, a reddish coppery colour. Nice! I boosted the magnification to 686x and saw some vague structure. It still looked a faint red even at this magnification.

I'm interested in hearing about your observations of this interesting planetary. Have you seen it before? Cheers.

Clear Skies
Joe

[gaseous]

You must have some amazing seeing over there Joe. I saw ARO11 just last month at Astrofest here in Queensland, and only noted it as a "bright stellar dot". I would certainly have made some comment if I'd seen any colour in it, or structure, although the seeing here generally doesn't allow the kind of magnifications you're getting. Hopefully heading out tomorrow night so I'll give it another crack - thanks for sharing.

[EpickCrom]

Thanks for your comments Patrick. Yes, us sandgropers are blessed with frequent very good seeing. I also observed Saturn and the views were rock steady:eyepop:

Thanks for sharing your observations of ARO 11. It takes magnification really well. Happy observing for tomorrow night.

[Zubenel]

Hi All,

I had a crack at ARO11 last Saturday night. Conditions were clear and cool 10 degrees for B2 skies at 1500Feet ASL.
I used sky safari Pro 5 for location and tracking with "Zamar".
I had a guest with me which limited the attempt which turned out as a not achieved unfortunately.Will try next Month.:thumbsup:I would like to image with sort of result. https://www.astrobin.com/pix7pn/?q=ARO11

[EpickCrom]

Good attempt Wes, I'm sure you will catch it next month :thumbsup:

[gaseous]

Finally got around to trying ARO11 again this weekend, and while I wouldn't say I saw red, it certainly has a non-white/grey ruddiness to it, and was certainly more than a stellar dot like the last time I saw it - more a small bug on a windscreen type of smudge. This weekend was in Boondooma, nearly 4 hours NW of Brisbane, in the darkest skies I've experienced, with good seeing to boot. Managed to crank up the magnification on Jupiter to 450x and was still steady. Didn't do a whole lot for my dark-adapted vision though.

[EpickCrom]

Excellent report Patrick. I'm glad you nabbed ARO 11! Sounds like you had quite the night :thumbsup:

[gaseous]

Thanks Joe, I finally got a sample of the kind of skies you must have on a regular basis over in the west! I've never seen so much detail at such high power on the Tarantula - just breathtaking.