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Old 15-02-2005, 01:20 AM
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astro_south (Andrew)
No GOTO..I enjoy the hunt

astro_south is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 1,094
Janos

nice to see you got away to some dark skies and found the ghostly hamburger. You mentioned that you had trouble finding n3132 (Eight Burst Nebula). Your 8" should easily be able to see it, but I guess you have to know what to look for. When you look directly at this planetary it will appear starlike (ie the star imposed near the central star dominates the view). When you look just away from it to a neighbouring star you will notice (with averted vision) a haze / fuzz around the target - almost like it is out of focus. Did you have a detailled enough star chart when you hunted it down? If not, get into some planetarium software like CdC and make your own finder charts.

Also, recently I have found that using high powers can help with planetary nebula. Infact when you hunt for this I would suggest starting at around 70 to 100x magnification to help it stand out from stars. Do you have a UHC / OIII as this will also help in identifying the planetary (using the blinking method)?

regards

Andrew
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