Help with Nebula.

[glenc (Glen)]

I am working on a list of the brightest (diffuse) nebulae but it is difficult because they have no magnitudes. So I decided to ask for help. What are the 10 brightest nebulae that you have seen? Please arrange them in order from bright to faint if you can.
But 5 nebulae in ANY order will be fine.

[glenc (Glen)]

There are a total of 303 nebulae in the NGC and IC catalogues.
This list contains 67 of them arranged in order from large (IC 1396) to small (NGC 2261).

IC 1396, N 1499, N 3372, N 7000, IC 4628
N 2237, N 6727, N 6960, M 42, IC 434
IC 4604, IC 5070, N 6992, IC 1318, IC 2948
M 8, N 2174, N 2264, N 281, IC 4603
N 6334, N 1435, IC 405, N 2070, N 2024
N 1491, N 6357, IC 1805, M 43, IC 2177
N 2736, N 3199, N 3579, N 6188, M 20
M 17, N 7380, IC 1848, N 6888
N 3324, N 2467, N 7635, N 346
N 1579, N 6595, IC 63, N 896, N 1975
N 2023, N 7023, IC 5146, N 2359
N 7538, N 2067, M 78, N 6559, M 16
N 7129, N 1333, N 1931, M 1, N 1763
N 1788, N 2626, N 1624, N 2035, N 2261

How many have you seen?

Reference
Revised New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue
Wolfgang Steinicke Version: January 6, 2006
http://www.ngcic.org/hcngcic.htm
http://www.ngcic.org/steinicke/2006/explan.htm

[adlsa5092]

Hi,
Not sure what your aim is with this nebulae list - are you making the list as 'viewable objects'? This could be the case as you are asking people to give you names of ones they have seen ... Anyway I had a quick look at the list and some never rise, such as,
IC1396
NGC7635
IC63
NGC896
NGC7023
NGC7129
so it's not clear why they are there 'coz people would have never seen them - in Oz anyway. Others in the list have Decs that may not be viewable from lower latitudes, or if they are, they would be low on the horizon and as such questionable for a good look-see, i.e. as the objects approach +50deg Dec

Anyway, my suggestion is that you vet the list and exclude any that are not good for southern hemisphere viewing.
cheers

[glenc (Glen)]

These are the objects north of dec+50 with their declinations.
Most of them are visible from Northern Australia (Gove, Ravenshoe) and IIS members from the northern hemisphere might be able to see all of the northern ones. I have seen some of them from California and some from Townsville.

N 7023, dec +68 transits 9 degrees above the horizon in Darwin.
N 7129, 66
N 896, 62
N 7635, 61
IC 1805, 61
N 7538, 61
IC 1848, 60
IC 63, 60
N 7380, 58
IC 1396, 57
N 281, 56
N 1491, 51
N 1624, 50

[glenc (Glen)]

The following are 30 bright nebulae listed APROXIMATELY from brightest to faintest. All objects are north of declination –33 deg.

M 42, M 17, NGC 7000, M 8, NGC 281
M 1, NGC 1977, M 43, NGC 2237-9, NGC 2261
M 20, M 16, NGC 7023, NGC 2174, M 78
NGC 2467, NGC 1491, NGC 1788, Mi 92, NGC 896
NGC 1333, NGC 1435, IC 410, NGC 1973-5, NGC 1999
NGC 2024, Ced 62, Sh 112, NGC 6960-92, IC 5070

Reference
Visual Catalogue of Galactic Nebulae
Andreas Alzner, Ronald Stoyan
Webb Society QJ 1/1996

For the first time ever this catalogue contains a complete list of nearly all Galactic Nebulae north of -33° Dec visible in a 14" instrument. All given data is optimised for visual work and enables each observer to compile his own observational schedules. The catalogue consists of about 400 visual observations of 240 Galactic Nebulae. Each line represents the best observation of the given object achieved by the stated observer under his conditions, the results given in numbers for short. All of these observations were done from central Europe with limiting sky magnitudes (zenith) from m6.3 to m7.2. Not included in this catalogue are those objects were no visual sighting could be achieved.

The 30 largest M, NGC and IC nebulae from the same catalogue are in order.

NGC 6992-5, NGC 7000, NGC 1499, IC 2177, IC 2118
IC 1396, NGC 2264, NGC 2237-9, IC 1805, IC 1848
IC 5067-70, M 8, IC 4604, IC 5068, NGC 7822 = Ced 214
IC 405, NGC 6960, M 42, IC 434, M 16
NGC 2467, IC 410, M 17, NGC 6559, NGC 2174
NGC 2359, NGC 6526, NGC 896, NGC 1977, IC 417

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

My top few ...

M42 Orion
NGC 2070 - Tarantula (I could be wrong, I've not seen it for a while!)
M17 - Swan
M8 - Lagoon
M43 - Orion adjunct
M20 - Trifid
M1 (should this be in the list?)

I'm bisased as I use a rather long FL so I could never imagine the north american nebula for eg as bright (even when I lived up north!). The list would be different again if it included planetaries.

[glenc (Glen)]

Thanks.

[glenc (Glen)]

There are only 20 NGC and IC nebulae south of declination –30. (Not including the LMC & SMC). This list is in order from north to south.

* Are the best southern nebulae in my opinion.

N6357, F
*N6334
*N6726, B
N5367, F
*IC4628, B
N2626, F
N2736, F
N6164, vF
*N6188
*N3199
*N3324
IC2220, eF
N3503, vF
*N3372 vB
N3603
*N3581, B
IC2872
*IC2944, B
IC2966
IC2631

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

And how could I have missed the Eta Carinae Nebula?!? That surely must be second only to Orion. Shame on me.