[ngcles]

Hi Kev,

IC 2118 is a real pain in the you know what to see and I can say that I've only seen it once and it was a threshold detection.

The problem is that in order to see it you need (1) a very dark transparent sky (2) Big Aperture and (3) Wide field -- it is nearly 3 degrees long and a degree wide and there is no way short of hand-held binoculars that you can get that sort of field and they don't have enough aperture.

Item (1) Is no problem to find. If you have (2) then you will almost certainly not have (3) and vice-versa. Large aperture inevitably means long focal length and that means narrow field which means you have no hope of fitting it in.

Your best hope is to abandon the thought of seeing it whole and try to detect a part -- preferably a section or an "edge" between dark (sky) and not quite so dark (nebula).

Your best hope is the boundary on the eastern side (nearest Rigel) at the northern end between the 8th mag star SAO 131759 and the 7th magnitude star at the northern tip SAO 131799. Along here is a definite boundary -- where best (though still not great) contrast is achieved.

A nebula filter is no help -- it is a reflection nebula.

Go for this little zone on a really dark night with a better than ZLM mag 6.3 sky, a 'scope 12" or larger and you widest field eyepiece.

That I think is your best hope.

It was difficult enough under a virtually pristine sky using an 18" in a 58 arc-min field at x85 let me tell you!!

Best of luck,

Best,

Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T