|
I spent quite some this on M22 last night. Seeing was 6/10 with reasonable transparency. I used our old solid tube 8" F6 Dob with a variety of eyepieces.
This is the first time I have really taken the time to look at this object in detail. It really is a wonderfull GC.
I initially used a 2" GSO 30mm SV @ 38X (it is actually 32mm by measurement). In this eyepiece it was a large, bright circular haze with many superimposed stars. There were hints of tendrills or arms radiating outwards and the resolved stars seemend to be following these. A 20mm Synta Wide Field followed @ 64X. I now found the bright background haze starting to resolve into stars, but what really got my attention were the radiating tendrills or arms. These became very noticeable. The brighter stars formed long chains, particularly along the arms and the whole effect was very pretty. I decided to increase the magnification to 81X using a 15mm Ross wide angle binocular eyepiece (I think it is an Erfle). I felt this mag/fov best framed M22. I was able to resolve stars deeper into the cluster and the star chains and associated arms were really stunning. I spent some considerable time just looking and pondering what this object would look like up close in 3D. Before I moved on, just for fun, I pushed the magnification up using 9 and 6 mm Synta Wide Fields (135X & 203X). At these magnifications the level of resolution just kept on increasing although the arms and tendrills started to loose their impact.
Overall a beautifull sight and well worth spending some time on.
|