Observation February 10, 2008

It’s again a nice sky this evening. I wanted to look back to the supernova in NGC 524. Yesterday evening I was looking at the wrong place. So this time I printed out a picture of NGC 524 together with its surrounding stars and the supernova. I could first not see it but after a while, when my eyes were well adapted to the dark, I found it at 156x. It was visible for around 20% of the time; this to say that it was not that easy. It's the first supernova I see !!

After this nice achievement I decided to do some planetary nebulas.

Location: Boutersem (Belgium)
Equipment: Celestron Advanced Newton 20cm F5
Eyepieces: 24mm and 16mm - Powermate 2,5x
Limit Magnitude 5.0 to 5.3
Seeing: moderate
Time from 19:00 UT to 21:00 UT

IC 3568 – baby Eskimo – planetary nebula of mag 10.4 in Camelopardalis
At 64x I can see a small disc. The object forms a triangle with 2 other stars which are fainter than the nebula. It reacts very well on a OIII filter. Ay 154x the disc becomes very obvious. I can see a bright core surrounded by a dimmer edge. No more details with a OIII filter.

PK 147+4.1 - planetary nebula of 10” of mag 13.8 in Camelopardalis
Not visible at 64x nor at 154x. But with an UHC filter it becomes visible after a while (154x), so the nebula reacts with a slow response time to a filter. I can see now and then a small disc. Afterward I could see the nebula also without filter.

PK 147-2.1 - planetary nebula of 7” of mag 13.4 in Perseus
Not visible at 64x nor at 154x without filter. At 154x with UHC I can see a stellar object with averted vision. It’s visible 80% of the time.

PK 131-5.1 - planetary of mag 14.8 in Perseus: not visible at any magnification

PK 198-6.1 - planetary of mag 12.2 in Orion: not visible

PK 197-14.1 - planetary of 57” of mag 13.9 in Orion
At 104x with UHC it’s visible 50% of the time as a very faint disc.

NGC 2022 - planetary of 32” of mag 11.5 in Orion
I can see a disc but the ring (so the dark centre) is not visible (154x)

Flame nebula
This was like yesterday well visible at 64x with UHC filter.

This was 2 hours well spend. Happy to have seen 4 new planetary nebulas (I had observed NGC 2022 already once in 2005)

Clear skies