Observing report 7th August 2004 - A Veil Under An Orange Sky

Equipment: Orion Optics (UK) Europa 250 Newtonian ("Min-Hubble") mounted on a
HEQ5.
Objects: Epsilon Lyrae, M27, M57, M13, Eastern and Western Veil Nebula

Setup outside at about 9.30pm. Twilight was well developed and the
temperature was quite balmy. Sky beautifully clear with barely a cloud to be
seen, despite the weather forecasts promising dire things for the following day.

Started observing around about 10:45. Although the seeing was good, everyone and
his neighbour had their outside lights on! Not good. This gave the sky a
slightly greater orange cast than normal but I decided to soldier on as it had
been a over a month since I last looked through a telescope and I was starting
to go stir crazy. Only the fact that I had had a few beers earlier (much
earlier) stopped me from loading up the car and at least getting off my estate.
Started off with Epsilon Lyrae, the double-double as I think this makes a good
test of seeing conditions. Unfortunately, it also proved to be a good indicator
that my collimation was off quite badly. 5 minutes and the laser collimator
later and things were much rosier - Epsilon Lyrae resolved into its component
pairs nicely at 120x (10mm e/p). Spent about 5 mins looking at this but I have
to admit that doubles aren't my thing - there's only so long I can stare at a
double star before saying "Yep, there's two of 'em allright" and moving on.

I moved on. To M27, infact.

Despite that fact that I've looked at this countless times in the past, it's
still one of my favourite objects, more so even than M57. On this occasion
though I really wanted to try out my Astronomik UHC filter. I've used this once
before on M27 but it was earlier in the year and M27 had been quite low (around
the 30-40 degree mark from memory) so it probably hadn't been at its best.
Tonight was a different matter - even without the filter M27 resolved clearly
(as you'd hope in a 10" 'scope!). I keep forgetting just how large an object
this is - 120x is almost too much magnification and I eventually settled on half
this. Then I threaded the filter on and wow, what a difference. The sky
background darkened almost to black while the nebula almost seemed to brighten.
It's an illusion brought on by the increase in contrast, of course, but even so
it's quite spectacular. A wealth of detail that had been hidden was suddenly
made apparent. Although the essential shape remained the same, it gained a
subtle mottling and some of the fainter outlying regions became visible.

Onward then, to M57 - the King Of Rings. This is an object that doesn't really
(I think) benefit from a UHC filter as it's already quite bright and doesn't
actually -have- a great deal of subtle detail, at least not at magnitudes that
my 'scope and my eyes can resolve. I actually find M57 a slightly dull object.
Whether I just haven't studied it long enough I don't know, but somehow it fails
to hold my interest. One of these nights I'm going to devote an hour to it and
try to tease more detail out of it.

Looked in briefly on M13, as I was nearby. Tried again to locate NGC6210 in
Hercules and once again failed. The problem last time was that I hadn't properly
familiarised myself with its location but this time I knew where to look. Still
couldn't find the blighter though. The problem this time (I think) is that I
simply didn't what to look for and, more crucially, how much magnification is
required to resolve this object. A bit more research needed here, I think.

Finally, I moved on to the object that had been my main reason for setting up
tonight - the Veil Nebula in Cygnus. This is both a very easy and a very hard
object to see. Easy because it's large and one part of it intersects a fairly
bright star (52 Cygni - I don't know the exact visual magnitude but it's
probably between 4.0 and 5.0), hard because it's quite faint and really requires
either a UHC of an OIII filter to see. The last time I'd been out I found the
Western Veil (the part that intersects 52 Cygni) and, even with the filter,
found it to be quite hard to see. Again though, that had been some time ago when
it was low down. Tonight I found it almost without thinking about it!

I had my 32mm e/p (37.5x) loaded up, together with the UHC filter. Centered
Mini-Hubble on 52 Cgni and lo and behold, there it was - a faint, misty streamer
of light pouring away from the star. There's a smaller portion of the nebula on
the other side of the star but I've so far been unable to resolve this. I spent
a good 15 mins staring at this ribbon of light. a good way to describe it is
that it looks a wee bit as though your e/p has got smudged and it's flaring on
one side - indeed I made myself center another bright star in order to rule this
out, as there -was- a slight risk I'd smudged the e/p earlier in the evening.

No flare was apparent on the target star. Moved back to 52 Cygni and there it
was again, quite apparent.

Decided that the time was right to have a go at the Eastern Veil. This turned
out to be almost trivially easy to locate by simply slewing the 'scope to the
left slightly. The Eastern Veil resembles nothing more than a cobweb, floating
against the stars, with many more filaments and strands becoming visible as I
let my eyes relax. This is a truly lovely object to view and one I'm not going
to get tired of in a hurry. If nothing else it's made me want to invest in an
OIII filter as well as my UHC, as I've heard that an OIII is a better filter
for viewing the Veil. I also need to actually do something about finding a
darker site to view from, but I'm a lazy sod at heart.

Packed up just after midnight.

Jim
--
Find me at http://www.ursaMinorBeta.co.uk
"Brace yourself, this might make your eyes water."