davidpitre
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/10/05
Posts: 1709
Loc: Central Texas
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I'd like to hear of observations of Barnard's Loop.
Yeah, yeah...it's big, faint, and requires dark skies. A little more than that. What scope you used, what was seen, what parts are brightest,filters or not,sky conditions, what scope might be optimal,....
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David
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tatarjj
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 993
Loc: Austin, TX
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I've seen Banard's Loop (Sh2-276) through both my 4" refractor and my 18" dob. With an H-beta filter, much of the loop can be traced, and it is strongest in the general vicinity of the part of the loop that runs just north of M78. I actually haven't tried to spot the nebula in unfiltered, but it's probably possible under very pristine skies, and maybe I could do it if I tried. I can't remember exactly, but I can trace the loop down to around the level of Orion's Belt, I think, before it fades out of view. To the north, the visibile end of the nebula is a few degrees to the NW of M78. Obviously, I use my lowest power for this observation, and through the 18", I have to scan through MANY FOV's to see the entire object.
The first time I saw this object I was at a site that was classed as bortle scale 4 (green). I now observe from a site that's bortle scale 2 (grey-black) and needless to say, Banard's Loop is quite a bit easier to see there. I might even succeed to see it unfiltered from that site if I tried.
Years ago I came across this website:
http://astronomy-mall.com/Adventures.In.Deep.Space/sh2276.htm
You see that they mention that Barnard's Loop has a western component in Eridanus, Sh2-245. I was finally able to bag this object from West Texas last December. It's ALOT fainter than Sh2-276. Here's my report that includes Sh2-245:
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1462047/page/26/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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LumpyDarkness
sage
Reged: 08/06/07
Posts: 372
Loc: San Francisco bay area
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I saw a portion of it last winter from a dark site south of the San Francisco bay area. It was through a 4" rich field folded reflector. Subtle. I think it was the part in Eridanus. A few months ago, the owner of DobZilla showed some of us his Barnard's Loop observing aid. It was a shoe box, with two eye holes cut into it, each with a filter taped over the holes somehow. I didn't pay close attention. I assume they were H-Beta filters. If I go observing there again in the coming months I'll give it a try and report back here.
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Mark Wagner
CalStar is coming up in September!
18" f/4.5 Dob
My Deep Sky Observing Blog
SF Bay Area Observers - TAC - updated 08/23/09
Adventures In Deep Space: updated 08/23/09
NGC/IC Project
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gezak22
super member
Reged: 08/15/04
Posts: 184
Loc: Goleta, CA, USA
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I have seen the northern arc of Barnard's loop last year in my 8" f/6 Dobson with the aid of a 40mm Paragon and a 2" Lumicon H-beta filter. The observing site was at Lake San Antonio (California), which is in the gray area on the clearskyclock.
Here is an excerpt of my observing report: "I was actually able to follow most of the northern arc of the loop, but it was pretty faint and the two ends were poorly defined."
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ph2
super member
Reged: 11/28/05
Posts: 119
Loc: Aalborg, Denmark
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My best views of Barnard’s loop have been with an H-alpha filter made by Astronomik and a red-sensitive image intensifier.
With my image intensifier at 2x magnification, the view is in essence like a naked eye view of Orion, except that several of the red emission nebulae are now plainly visible. Barnard’s loop is looking like a big arc curving through the constellation.
Under dark SQM 20.89 skies (outside the city, winter Milky Way visible, zodiacal light in the spring), I can trace the loop a complete half circle from north of Orion’s belt, to the east, down south and west towards Rigel. The section north of Orion’s belt is the brightest part of the nebula. Here it is an easy target visible with direct vision.
From the city-skies of Aalborg (SQM 19.7, winter Milky Way NOT visible) the northern section of Barnard’s loop is the only part of the nebula, that I can see with the image intensifier.
Light pollution color codes used by the Clear Sky Clock http://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/faq/2.html -->
20.89 is Yellow sky.
19.7 is Orange but close to Red sky.
.
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sgottlieb
sage
Reged: 07/22/07
Posts: 312
Loc: SF Bay area
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As far as viewing Barnard's Loop, really it's all about the skies -- not the scope used! In fact, I think it's easier in my 80mm finder at 12.5x (using a H-beta filter) with its 5° field of view, then tracing it in my 18-inch scope where it spills out of many eyepiece fields. Here are my notes using the finder (Stellarvue F80):
Easily visible extending through the entire 5° field of the 80mm finder at 12.5x (24 Panoptic) using a H-beta filter. With NGC 2122 centered in the finder, a gently curving band of nebulosity of width 30' extended edge-to-edge over the field and the glow could be traced an additional degree or two beyond by slowly panning.
A locally brighter, 30'-40' patch is near the north end at ~5hr 47m +01.3. A large triangle (sides 23', 30' and 36') consisting of a three mag 6/7/7.5 stars are involved in this glow. I was able to trace the Loop roughly from this position all the way south to -04° and highly suspected it curving southwest beyond M42 which was at the west edge of the field. The entire extent of the loop covered ~7°-8°!
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Steve Gottlieb
18" f/4.3 Starmaster
Adventures In Deep Space
7500+ NGC/IC Visual Descriptions
NGC/IC Project
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stevecoe
"Astronomical Tourist"
Reged: 04/24/04
Posts: 2484
Loc: Arizona, USA
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Howdy all;
Here is my set of observations of Barnard's Loop.
Sh 2-276 6" f/6 Mak-Newt 35mm Panoptic EP--very faint, extremely large, very, very elongated streamer. Part of Barnard's Loop. The UHC filter helps very much, so does averted vision, much better contrast out of the corner of my eye.
Naked eye with 2" UHC filter shows just a hint of a very faint streamer that is very long, hence the name. I used the GOTO system and the red dot finder to point out the location of the cluster NGC 2112 precisely, south of Betelgeuse and east of the Belt stars. It is difficult but I could hold the nebula steady on a night I rated 7 out of 10 for transparency.
Using the 8X42 binoculars on that same night I could follow the nebulous streamer for three degrees above the cluster NGC 2112 and for two degrees below the cluster. I held the 2 inch UHC filter in front of one objective of the binoculars and closed the other eye. This did help the contrast somewhat, but this is still a low surface brightness object under any conditions.
4" f/6 S+T=7 30mm Ultima EP and UHC filter shows it as pretty faint, very large and very, very elongated. It shows the nebulosity two fields of view long, 3 degrees above and 3 degrees below the star cluster. If I move the scope one field either east or west of Barnard's Loop the background sky is much darker, so there is lots of nebulosity in this area.
A fun nebulous streamer, some of this and a photo from Chris Schur at in my book on nebulae.
Enjoy;
Steve Coe
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150mm 6" f/8 Celestron Refractor on CGEM Mount
TeleVue 102 refractor
Author "Deep Sky Observing" Springer-Verlag
Author "Nebulae and How to Observe Them" Springer
Canon Xt astrocamera with Hutech modification
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Aldebaran
super member
Reged: 09/30/06
Posts: 101
Loc: Turku, Finland
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This is one of the objects, that I'll certainly try in my dark sky site in Parainen near Turku, Finland! Hopefully I'll get my chance before the snow covers up the ground...luckily, Orion is rising quite soon in reasonable time to observe..
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Juha
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Instruments:
10'' Newton
3'' Lens (RFT)
7x18 Binos
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http://juhansivut.pp.fi/Deepsky (my deep sky pages)
Taivaanpallo (my amateur astronomy blog in finnish)
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sgottlieb
sage
Reged: 07/22/07
Posts: 312
Loc: SF Bay area
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Quote:
The UHC filter helps very much ...
I noticed that Steve used a UHC filter for his observations, while others (including myself) used an H-beta on Barnard's Loop. I'm wondering if there is a consensus on the best filter response?
By the way, although Barnard generally gets photographic credit around 1894 for this object, at least part of it was first noticed visually by William Herschel (no filter for him!) 100 years earlier as he described a region "affected with milky nebulosity" to the northwest of NGC 2112 (near the three brighter stars I mentioned in my description).
In fact it was Herschel's list of suspected nebulous regions that inspired Barnard to photograph the loop. Actually, Pickering beat Barnard to the punch photographically by a few years (1889) but the name has stuck.
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Steve Gottlieb
18" f/4.3 Starmaster
Adventures In Deep Space
7500+ NGC/IC Visual Descriptions
NGC/IC Project
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tatarjj
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 993
Loc: Austin, TX
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Quote:
Quote:
The UHC filter helps very much ...
I noticed that Steve used a UHC filter for his observations, while others (including myself) used an H-beta on Barnard's Loop. I'm wondering if there is a consensus on the best filter response?
Well, I've observed it with both UHC and H-beta, and like many faint emission regions associated with star birth (as opposed to SNR's or PNe's), it is clearly better in H-beta. That said, it still can be seen in UHC, of course. The western section in Eridanus also clearly responded best to H-beta, despite what is said in the "Adventures in Deep Space" website.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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davidpitre
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/10/05
Posts: 1709
Loc: Central Texas
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Quote:
I can trace the loop a complete half circle from north of Orion’s belt, to the east, down south and west towards Rigel.
Nice!
Steve. You mentioned holding the filter in front of the objective. I've only tried holding it in front of the eyelense.
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David
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Bill Weir
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 06/01/04
Posts: 1258
Loc: Metchosin (Victoria), Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
I can trace the loop a complete half circle from north of Orion’s belt, to the east, down south and west towards Rigel.
Nice!
Steve. You mentioned holding the filter in front of the objective. I've only tried holding it in front of the eyelense.
It works very well with binoculars. I also do this with my 2" OIII and my 10X50 binoculars on objects like the Veil, Helix and Rosette. I like keeping both eyes open. The nebulae aren't quite as intense that way but it adds nice starfields to the views.
I've tried both H-Beta and Ultrablock filters when observing the loop both naked eye and with 10X50 binoculars. Actually I tried OIII also but it showed nothing. I found the view with the H-Beta showed more nebulosity to the northern section while the Ultrablock allowed me to trace further along the southern portion towards the west.
I've traced the "Loop" with both my 6" and 12.5" dobs but didn't find the view of a swath cutting across the FOV quite as satisfying.
Bill
Bill
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6'' Orion SkyQuest
12.5'' f/5 Custom Truss Dob
William Optics 80mm ZenithStar II ED Doublet
f/5 25" newtonian on a giant GEM, any time I want
Observing sessions grand total for 2008, 121.
So far in 2009, 71
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David Knisely
Postmaster
Reged: 04/19/04
Posts: 7891
Loc: Beatrice, Nebraska
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Quote:
Quote:
The UHC filter helps very much ...
I noticed that Steve used a UHC filter for his observations, while others (including myself) used an H-beta on Barnard's Loop. I'm wondering if there is a consensus on the best filter response?
By the way, although Barnard generally gets photographic credit around 1894 for this object, at least part of it was first noticed visually by William Herschel (no filter for him!) 100 years earlier as he described a region "affected with milky nebulosity" to the northwest of NGC 2112 (near the three brighter stars I mentioned in my description).
In fact it was Herschel's list of suspected nebulous regions that inspired Barnard to photograph the loop. Actually, Pickering beat Barnard to the punch photographically by a few years (1889) but the name has stuck.
I have used both a narrowband filter and the H-Beta on Barnard's Loop, but overall, I would have to give the nod to the H-Beta. That having been said, last week, I observed both the Loop and the fainter Lambda Orionis complex using the DGM Optics NPB filter held up to my eye. Clear skies to you.
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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
Prairie Astronomy Club
http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
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BlueRidge
sage
Reged: 01/12/07
Posts: 288
Loc: Blue Ridge Mtns., VA
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My first observation was with my Miyauchi Giant BR141 binoculars from the mountains of Virginia. These binos have enormous light gathering capability, and with fair seeing ws able to see the oh-so-faint Barnard's Loop without filters.
I just purchased OIII and UHC filters for my NS11 and will be looking at Orion all winter long!
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Celestron Skymaster 15 x 70's, Miyauchi BR-141's
Celestron Nexstar 11 GPS, SkyAlign upgrade
Celestron 9.25 XLT OTA, CG-5 Mount
Stellarvue SV90TBV
Denk II Binoviewers/#S2 Power/Filterswitch
21mm and 14mm Denk EPs
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