Hi Enchilada, Renormalised & All,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Enchilada
I wonder if this new southern nebulosity you saw looks something like this?  |
Well, no. To fill everyone in to a certain extent,
without at this stage disclosing the identity of the star in question (Renormalised, you will need either Sodium Pentothal or a gallon of Port) (I believe they have the same net effect, but the port is more pleasant by all accounts).
The attached image is a UKST blue plate with N up and W to the right as per convention. You can see this star has an "arc" surrounding it in the NE quadrant that looks somewhat like a "bow-shock", and to the SW (in the opposite direction) there is a little trail pointing directly away from the star and another arc in that direction.
Well, we didn't see the NE "arc" but two pretty experienced observers *detected* a small, thin line trailing away from the said star at least a couple of times over several minutes -- x185 27' TF and no filter. We both independently had the same position which is consistent with the image. A diffraction spike caused by the 'scope wasn't far from that position (seemed to almost run parallel at the time) but we're both pretty convinced that is wasn't a visual artifact of some sort.
I guess you can only say what you see and if in the end you're wrong -- then you're wrong -- I guess. But, I approached this task with a solid expectation that I would very quickly confirm that this nebulae candidate
wasn't a visual object (at least not in 46cm) and was quite surprised when we both seem to have detected it and the same part and described it in the same way.
In the image, the NE arc seems to be the brightest bit but we didn't see that (tried hard, done fine) but no dice. Strange but true.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth ... swallamegod.
Best,
Les D