Hi John & All,
Quote:
Originally Posted by ausastronomer
To get the best out of observing the homonculus visually you need good seeing and high power. An 8" scope is plenty, to see good detail but you need 240X as an absolute minimum to get detail in the lobes. A 10" scope is better again and anything over 15" gives you an enormous advantage. Andrew Murrell and I often observe this target in our 18" and 25" scopes at 600X plus. I have on one occasion observed it at 1050X in my 18" scope under exceptional seeing. It is one target which holds up exceptionally well under very high magnification, but you need decent seeing.
The structure of the lobes has changed fairly noticeably over the past 4 or 5 years. The dark internal blotches have grown and the dimmer lobe has dimmed in comparison to the brighter one.
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Spot-on advice John -- couldn't have said it better. Seeing is very important if not critical to seeing detail because it is very small and needs quite a bit of magnification to enlarge it to the point where detail can be more easily seen. In my 18" x247 gives a good view if the seeing is cooperative, better at x317, x464 and x634, but (the last two) only if the atmosphere is truly on-song (rare).
http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/~astrola...r2_hst_big.jpg
Also, the central star is now much brighter compared to be small nebula surrounding it than it was say 10 years ago (in the pic at the attached link). I can can only vaguely make out the outer dark red halo in the very best conditions (this may be dependant on how red-sensitive your eyes are).
As John has correctly said, quite a bit of change (in context) has occurred in the last half-dozen years with the dimmer lobe now a lot dimmer than the bright one, the "bites" out of the side of it making that dimmer lobe look somewhat "anchor-shaped" and the dark blobs in the bright lobe growing in darkness, size and number. Without doubt one of the best small objects in the whole sky -- very, very tasty!
Best,
Les D