Date: Monday evening, 13-Sept-2004
Location: Backyard, Palm Springs, California
Equipment: Tele Vue 76 (3" f/6.3) refractor

I've been sort of hooked on a few little planetary nebulae lately.
Tonight i found NGC 6572 in Ophiuchus for the first time. Through the
TV76 at 30x looks like a star. But with the 7mm for 68x it looks quite
a bit like a little planet. I've seen this planetary referred to as
the "Blue Racquetball" but i don't see the blue color tonight. Using
the UHC filter the nebula really pops out of the background.

Since i was in the area i checked open cluster NGC 6633. Fairly spares
and coarse. Seems somewhat triangular in shape. Also open cluster IC
4756 in Serpens is large with mostly dim members. Reminds me of the
Beehive in Cancer.

Back to planetaries for the 3 i've been tracking lately... NGC 6543 in
Draco, NGC 6826 in Cygnus, and NGC 7662 in Andromeda. I think 6543 is
the brightest of tonight's four and 6826 the faintest. 6572 is
definitely the smallest. All are somewhat similar yet different in
their own ways.


-Florian
Stargazing.com