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"We love seeing your work and welcome any and all sketches on this forum, but please note whether your sketch is a through-the-eyepiece sketch or your rendition from an existing image / painting."
On the evening of the 18th to the 19th it was nice and clear.Transparency was all right. In an earlier stage a member of TSS and I talked about the visibility of NGC6781 from the city. Some years ago I had seen it from my backyard with a 140mm Mak, if I remembered well. As I had my 120 mm Evostar on the pier, for examining the big planets ( nice as ever) I tried it with the 120mm. Without UHC there was nothing. With UHC and averted vision it was almost impossible. I just had the slightest hint that there was something out there. Couldn't be sure though.
I decided to bring in the 150 mm. With it was not difficult any more. There it was. At 60 X (exit pupil 2,5 mm) it was at its best: contrast between the object and the sky at its biggest. I was a bit surprised that the 120mm had not done better than it did. Never mind, I had seen it.
The above sketch gives an impression of how I saw the Snowball nebula. In my memory it was sharper defined, but as I already mentioned, that was some time ago.
Later that night Mars popped above the far away buildings. Even though the f/5 achromat is not a planetary scope, I had no trouble observing the "egg" shaped form, the Southern Icecap and several darker and brighter surface details. It comes down to not getting distracted or irritated by the colors around it.
Refractors in frequency of use : *SW Evostar 120ED F/7.5 (all round ), * Vixen 102ED F/9 (vintage), both on Vixen GPDX. GrabnGo on Alt/AZ : *SW Startravel 102 F/5 refractor( widefield, Sun, push-to), *OMC140 Maksutov F/14.3 ( planets). Most used Eyepieces: *Panoptic 24, *Morpheus 14, *Leica ASPH zoom, *Zeiss barlow, *Pentax XO5. Commonly used bino's : *Jena 10X50 , * Canon 10X30 IS,*Swarovski Habicht 7X42, * Celestron 15X70, *Kasai 2.3X40 Rijswijk Public Observatory: * Astro-Physics Starfire 130 f/8, * 6 inch Newton, * C9.25, * Meade 14 inch LX600 ACF, *Lunt. Amateur astronomer since 1970.
Scope: Apertura AD10 with Nexus II with 8192/716000 Step Encoders EPs: ES 82* 18mm, 11mm, 6.7mm; GSO 30mm Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Binoculars List Counts:Messier: 75;Herschel 400: 30;Caldwell: 12; AL Carbon Star List: 16 Brett's Carbon Star Hunt
Cool sketch John and it sounds like a very nice view through the 150mm scope. Hope you will be able to get out again soon.
-Michael Refractors: ES AR152 f/6.5 Achromat on Twilight II, Celestron 102mm XLT f/9.8 on Celestron Heavy Duty Alt Az mount, KOWA 90mm spotting scope Binoculars: Celestron SkyMaster 15x70, Bushnell 10x50 Eyepieces: Various, GSO Superview, 9mm Plossl, Celestron 25mm Plossl Camera: ZWO ASI 120 Naked Eye: Two Eyeballs Latitude: 48.7229° N
Mission accomplished. Someone in my environment suggested to observe NGC 6781 with an OIII filter instead of the UHC I used the other night. So I did. And indeed, with it it seemed a tiny bit brighter, but that was not the most important. With averted vision the rather sharply defined edges appeared, and that was I was looking for. It wasn't a sloppy blob of light any more, but a strong impression of a nice annular form of light. Found it!
Very nice John and congrats on picking up NGC 6781. Fine sketch as well. To add perspective to your observation from a brighter city environment with smaller aperture and filter, here is my own observation (sans sketch) using 17.5 inches from a dark site a couple of years ago:
NGC 6781 (Aquila, planetary, mag=11.6, size=111.0”x 109.0”):
Easily swept up at 110x without a filter, it presented a large (for a PN) bright out of round orb of gray light. Its southern rim was brighter than the rest of the shell giving the illusion of a crescent of brightness. It seemed surreal floating in the dark sea of the sky and I found it simply a beautiful object.
Alan
Scopes: Astro Sky 17.5 f/4.5 Dob || Apertura AD12 f/5 Dob || Zhumell Z10 f/4.9 Dob ||
ES AR127 f/6.5 || ES ED80 f/6 || Apertura 6" f/5 Newtonian
Mounts: ES Twilight-II and Twilight-I
EPs: AT 82° 28mm UWA || TV Ethos 100° 21mm and 13mm || Vixen LVW 65° 22mm ||
ES 82° 18mm || Pentax XW 70° 10mm, 7mm and 5mm || barlows
Filters (2 inch): DGM NPB || Orion Ultra Block, O-III and Sky Glow || Baader HaB
Primary Field Atlases: Uranometria All-Sky Edition and Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas
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"Astronomers, we look into the past to see our future." (me)
"Seeing is in some respect an art, which must be learnt." (William Herschel)
"What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean." (Sir Isaac Newton)
"No good deed goes unpunished." (various)
“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?” (Scarecrow, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
Telescopes Saxon 10" x 1200 Dobsonian, Bresser 114 x 500 Dobsonian, Saxon 70 x 400 Refractor.
Eyepieces ES 82* 2" 18mm, 1.25" 11mm, GSO 2" 30mm superview, Seben mzt 8-24, Sky Watcher 58* 4mm and various Plossls.
Bino's Saxon 10 x 50, Carton 12 x 50, 10 x 25 ucf.
Other Skywatcher Solar System Imager