Telescope Reviews: Re: Easter Egg Nebula

I've only seen this object referred to as the "Egg Nebula" or the "Cygnus Egg Nebula" in the professional journals.

Here's my first observation --
13" (7/20/85): the "Egg Nebula" appears as a faint double object easily visible at 220x, elongated SSW-NNE. The SSW component is quasi-stellar and faint while the NNE component is brighter and slightly non-stellar. This unusual object does not respond to OIII, UHC or H-beta filters. Located 4.1' ESE of mag 7.7 SAO 70809.

And my last...
18" (8/12/07): the "Egg Nebula" was viewed at 450x as this object is quite small but has a high surface brightness. This bipolar protoplanetary consists of two small round knots oriented SSW-NNE with the brighter component on the NNE end. This 12th magnitude knot appears ~10" in size with an occasional star or stellar point at the center. Just SSW is a much fainter mag 14 knot, ~6" in size and the two components are encased in a very faint, elongated halo so the dimmer component just stands out individually. Located just 4' east of mag 8 HD 200371.

Since the central star isn't hot enough to ionize the gas in the lobes, the light is primarily reflected though highly polarized. Anyone try a polarizing filter on this object?

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Steve Gottlieb
18" f/4.3 Starmaster
Adventures In Deep Space - New article on MASH planetaries
7500+ NGC/IC Visual Descriptions
NGC/IC Project

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