Three Summer Planetaries

25 August 2019, 22:00 – 23:00 BST

The main objective for the evening was photographing the Veil Nebula (West) using 3-minute subs. This is twice as long as anything I’ve attempted before, providing my first real test of the autoguiding set-up. After the inevitable faffing around with polar alignment etc., I got about an hour’s worth of data before my target crossed the meridian.

Conditions: A very mild, still evening (perhaps a little too mild, judging by the sensor temperatures). Once the imaging rig was up and running, I sat down with the XT10 to look at three familiar targets and one not-so-familiar.

M15, globular cluster, Pegasus
Viewed at 240x and 133x (the latter giving the best view on this occasion). Takes a little longer to “get your eye in” on this globular compared to M13, but very rewarding once you do. Nicely resolved, particularly with averted vision.

M27, The Dumbbell Nebula, Vulpecula
9mm Nagler + OIII filter. Very bright with this filter – the apple-core fills in to become a football. But hard to make out detail other than a sharp edge on one side.

NGC 6905, The Blue Flash Nebula, Delphinus
A new object for me; it helps that there’s a large arrow in the sky (the constellation Sagitta) pointing towards it. At 133x it was obvious as a medium to large-sized, round planetary nebula, though I can’t say there was anything particularly blue about it. Appeared to be some brightness variations across the disc, including a slightly darker core. Field star to the north and a fainter one to the east.

M57, The Ring Nebula, Lyra
Beautiful ethereal ring of light. So bright in the XT10 that I can’t really compare it to a smoke-ring anymore; it’s closer to the photographic representation (minus the colour of course). With the OIII filter it was brighter still, and seemed slightly more elongated compared to the unfiltered view.

Nature note
3 frogs in the pond … and 5 tadpoles!