| cycledogg |
| (member) |
| 06/23/09 11:45 PM |
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Ring Nebula - I found it!
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Please excuse my excitement but I'm just starting out hunting DSO. It took just under one hour but I found it and it was great. Still searching for NGC 6210.
Cheers,
Rick in Tennessee
| Tom Andrews |
| (Pooh-Bah) |
| 06/24/09 12:24 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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The Ring is one of my favorites: even though there really isn't much to see, it's just so facinating because of its shape.
Congratulations!
| calder |
| (super member) |
| 06/24/09 12:51 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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Congratulations Rick!
The Ring Nebula was the first deep sky object I found with my own equipment back in 1986. I was amazed (and still am) by the way it just kind of hangs there in space. I looked at it for a long time that night as I kept expecting a puff of wind to come along and blow it away. Of course I knew that it was impossible but I still find myself going back to observe the Ring often just to make sure.
Clear Skies,
Bob
| Bill Weir |
| (Pooh-Bah) |
| 06/24/09 02:12 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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Congratulations.
With NGC 6210 think small, very small. In fact it will look just like an out of focus star. Or maybe think of it this way, for the fatness it will appear, it won't seem bright enough, like a star that large will be. If you think you are in the right spot, hold your OIII filter between your eye and the eyepiece and see if it doesn't dim like the regular stars will.
Good luck.
Bill
| AlanK |
| (professor emeritus) |
| 06/24/09 07:22 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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Well done - There's a whole universe of stuff out there waiting to be seen and that's the start of it. M57 has always been one of my favorites looking like bright smoke ring - even when its low above the northern horizon.
| Peter9 |
| (scholastic sledgehammer) |
| 06/24/09 08:37 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I got my first sight of the Ring Nebula on my first night out with my then "new" 6se. I was just as excited as you seem to have been. Grey and faint but splendid never the less.
Peter.
| ensign |
| (member) |
| 06/24/09 04:58 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I first found the Ring Nebula from my back yard in a 4" refractor. It was the second deep sky object I found (M13 was the first) and it was quite a thrill. Congrats!
| PG Lewis |
| (sage) |
| 06/24/09 07:16 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I definitely remember the first time I viewed M57, in a little 4.5" Newt from red/orange skies. Being a bit aperture/magnification challenged I wasn't sure what to expect if anything... but with a little patience, averted vision, and some scope nudging/bumping I was excited to discover I could see the central darkening! It was already a victory for me in finding it.
With a bit more observing under my belt and hunting and viewing even more faint targets I found I could discern the annular shape even at low magnification, and what was initially a meticulous star-hop (and getting used to the reversed view in the Newt) is now a point-and-got-it. It's always a sad parting when it finally moves too far into the western muck for the year.
| SPACEMAN D |
| (member) |
| 06/24/09 07:58 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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For everything is a begin!
. If you have a dark sky, you can even see the ring nebula true a 12X80 mm finder
Good luck on NGC 6210.
Maybe M27?
| Javier |
| (sage) |
| 06/26/09 12:34 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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Congrats Cycledogg, I'm still hunting for the Ring Nebula as well as the Owl Nebula. It's really tough in my area, LB everywhere. Besides I think the clouds are messing with me. It was nice and clear and as soon as I setup my scope the clouds rolled in. They would clear and as soon as I started viewing they would roll in again. I'm telling you they are messing with me.
I'm going to try and find either nebula tonight.
| mitaccio |
| (super member) |
| 06/26/09 06:03 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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Javier - Get a telrad. You'll find the Ring Nebula in seconds with it.
| NerfMonkey |
| (sage) |
| 06/26/09 06:45 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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When you're out again check out M27, the Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula. It's another planetary but the difference in appearance after getting used to M57 is startling. Your OIII filter should give you a really nice view of it too.
| Achernar |
| (Postmaster) |
| 06/26/09 11:53 PM |
| Attachment |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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NGC-6210 is very bright but tiny. At anything much less than 100X, you can mistake it for a star. It does respond well to nebula filters and even better to magnifications in the range of 200 to 250X. It is not the easiest object to find by star hopping, but a slow careful search of the area will show a bluish object that looks like a star that won't focus. That's NGC-6210, and if the seeing is steady, try looking at it at 250X and see if you can see the central star. I've seen it but when the seeing is poor the surrounding nebula hides it from view. It's also known as the Turtle Nebula because of some peculiar projections from the inner shell that resembles the outline of many a terrestrial turtle's head, shell and limbs.
Taras
| BSJ |
| (member) |
| 06/27/09 08:49 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I saw it for the first time with my Z10 on the 23rd too!
It was way cool because it's so different compared to anything else I've seen so far.
| Javier |
| (sage) |
| 06/28/09 10:35 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I finally saw the Ring Nebula last night, a wonderful faint and somewhat transparent object that just floats in space. I must have looked at it for over an hour.
Javier
| arpruss |
| (scholastic sledgehammer) |
| 06/28/09 03:53 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I really like M57 at fairly low magnification in my 13". There is something cool about looking at a field of lots of stars, and then seeing that one of them isn't a star, but a tiny and very well defined circle. (It beats finding most of the other planetaries which at low magnification just look like one of the stars didn't get into focus. Though that's kind of cool, too, like Mel in Deconstructing Harry. :-) )
At higher magnification, I've seen hints of faint color and of structure in the ring (could of course be my brain playing a trick on me). Really nice, too.
| Bill Barlow |
| (sage) |
| 06/29/09 05:47 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I saw it for the first time at my wife's college's astronomy department that had it's fall evening under the stars last November 1st. They own three Meade LX200 SCT's, two 8" and one 12" and also one C8 CPC. The 12" was tracking M57, so I waited in line for my turn, and wow..what a sight! A perfect light grey smoke ring suspended in space. I was surprised at how sharp the object was even in a light polluted site. Aperture rules, I guess.
Hopefully I can find it myself with a 10" Meade SCT in the coming months. I tried to find it last fall with an 8" SCT, but never could confirm it. But I found M27/the Dumbbell nebulae with a SV 102ED as well as with the 8" SCT.
| BSJ |
| (member) |
| 06/29/09 10:13 PM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I found it pretty quick just centering on the two "bottom" stars of Lyra. At first I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get that star in focus. Then it dawned on me. That's IT!
The reason I want your 32mm EP is I just got an OPT OIII filter for looking at nebulas. My other EP's have too much magnification for the larger nebulas.
The filter didn't do much for M57 but it made it possible to see the Veils and the N.A. nebula. Again, I didn't know what I was looking for on the N.A. Nebula. Then I realized the dark area I was seeing was the “gulf of Mexico” part of the nebula. The nebula is much larger than I expected…
Check out the Dumbbell nebula too. Way bigger than M57 but somewhat fainter.
| Johndob |
| (super member) |
| 06/30/09 01:33 AM |
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Re: Ring Nebula - I found it!
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I've been scanning that area and got M27 and 2 Clusters one small one larger. It's endless the goodies that are out there.NGC6210 looks like a good challenge.Clouds have been deliberately blowing in when i roll my scope out.