21 replies to this topic

[PhilH]

M46 in Puppis is one of my favorite open clusters and a striking sight through just about any telescope. More than 500 stars are crammed into an area just a Moon's diameter across, creating one of the most jam-packed throngs in the winter sky.

Click here to view the article

[nicknacknock]

Nice choice Phil!

 

A winter favorite indeed - M46, M47 and NGC2423 in the FOV of a Nagler 31mm and a short focal length scope. 3 Clusters in same FOV, plus a small, lovely PN to boot!

[ChrisCharlesJax]

I always come back to this one. It looks great in either my 18" Dob, or 80mm triplet.

[stonewoll]

This was my first planetary when I saw it a number of years back. A beautiful sight!

[Sasa]

Thanks Phil for a nice article. NGC2438 was really shining in 100mm ED already at 36x with UHC filter. I could see at 75x and 100x in the same telescope (without the filter) the hints of ring structure. 

 

The nebula was more difficult target from backyard in 82mm refractor. I could see hint of it at 42x, it was still difficult at 104x, with more time it became quite bright. At 186x, the nebula was quite dim, I could see hints of central darkening and I also noticed very faint star near SE edge.

[jeffreym]

We had an unexpected clear-ish night last night so I thought I would roll out an old 17.5" Starhopper (converted to truss) that has been feeling neglected. . . anyway, a short hop from Sirius put me on M46.  I have a lot of LP and rarely see the Milky Way from my house and last night was no different.  I know the added aperture isn't really all that helpful but it's fun to push the big scope around.  I was only seeing stars to mag12.5.  The nebula was very dificult to pick up but after about 20 minutes I was able to see it with averted vision.  Just a ghost of a disk.  Putting on an OIII filter made the ball of light jump right out at 53x.  Slightly dimmer to center.

Thanks Phil!

Jeff

[Jon Isaacs]

Phil:

 

Good choice. 

 

I think M46/NGC 2438 is high upon everyone's list of favorites. It's got those tiny pinpoint stars along with the beautiful planetary.

 

It presents many views and sides, depending on the sky and the telescope.  From my urban San Diego backyard, just seeing the star field in an 80 or 100 mm requires magnification.,  in a 10 inch, it comes alive though the nebula will be difficult without a filter.

 

Under dark skies, it's beautiful in hand held binoculars as a cloudy companion to M47. In larger reflectors it's no longer those subtle star fields, it's almost too bright and NGC 2438 is a jewel with an embedded star or two.

 

Jon

[Dave Mitsky]

M46 and NGC 2438 are two of the must-see winter DSOs.

[Dave Mitsky]

This 50-second-long exposure of M46 and M47 was captured from the Bradford Robotic Telescope facility on Tenerife in the Canary Islands using a 200mm Nikon lens and a FLI MaxCam CM2-1 fitted with a E2V CCD47-10 (1k x 1k pixels, each 13um square).  This was the best I could do in processing the rather disappointing raw image.  Faint M46 lies to the left of center and the brighter but sparser M47 is to the upper right.

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[Jon Isaacs]

This last week, I was out at our place in the high desert and spent a fair amount of time with an Astro-Tech 50mm RACI finder that's repurposed into a RFT.   It give very nice low power views and the optics are quite good, Castor at 5" is an easy split, Porrima at 3" is about the limit.

 

The views of M46 and M47 at low powers (10x, 5.5 degrees TFoV) were binocular like and quite pleasing.  I spent some time trying to eek out NGC2438 using both UHC and O-III filters and a variety of eyepieces but with no luck.  

 

Jon

[Stargazer3236]

I have imaged M46 and NGC 2438 many, many times. I have also diligently hunted down 2 of the three "other" planetary nebula in that area. I have seen and imaged the Calabash or Rotten Egg nebula a few times.

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Edited by Stargazer3236, 16 February 2021 - 06:02 PM.

[Stopforths]

ngc2818 and 2818a similar but a little bit harder to see. 

[Dave Mitsky]

There's information on NGC 2818/NGC 2818A in Pyxis at https://observing.sk...r/NGC_2818.html

 

Interestingly, NGC 2818 is the only cluster-planetary combination that is currently believed to be truly associated.

[Stargazer3236]

I am gonna try for NGC 2818 this evening. I have the perfect spot in which to view it, however, it is only 6 degrees above my horizon, so timing is critical. It transits my location at 10:44 pm. If I can get a pic of it, I will post it either here or in another forum, most likely EAA forum.

[Dave Mitsky]

There's more on NGC 2818/NGC 2818A at https://theskylive.c.../ngc2818-object

[Dave Mitsky]

Sketches of NGC 2818/NGC 2818A can be seen at https://www.cloudyni...18-a/?p=7785273 and https://www.cloudyni...818/?p=10017546

[Gamewarden]

After discussing M 46 At a meeting of the Kingston, Ontario RASC I thought I would have a look for this. Turns out I already had a pic of M 46 and when I looked at it there was the planetary Neb right where it should be. 

 

Thanks Mark

 

Edited by Gamewarden, 26 February 2021 - 05:00 PM.

[Stargazer3236]

Well, last night I had an opportunity to capture NGC 2818. However, the seeing and transparency in my area was a crap shoot at best. I was looking through almost the densest part of the atmosphere where high level jet stream was playing funky music and the air turbulence was extreme. Still I managed to obtain a 30 second pic of NGC 2818 using a Nexstar 8 OTA and my ZEQ25 mount, ASI294MC camera using SharpCap 3.2 Pro. I imaged in mono despite using a color camera, because the intense glow from near the horizon was atrocious. This object was only 6 degrees above my horizon and I was overlooking a significant light dome too.

 

As it is, you can just make out the nebula and not much detail, also the star cluster is vaguely evident.

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[PugLove]

I attempted this viewing from my light polluted backyard. Exposure time was roughly 20 seconds on my Celestron 8se. I'm pretty pleased with the results being what they were in poor light conditions.

 

[Jason27183]

I'm late to the party, but after reading Gamewarden's comment, I went back through my pictures of M46 and found the planetary nebula hiding in it.  Glad I read this thread.  I completely missed it when I originally looked at the image.

 

Edited by Jason27183, 02 May 2021 - 01:39 AM.

[Dave Mitsky]

Here's an image of M46 and NGC 2438 that I captured from the orange zone Naylor Observatory on the morning of 12/16/23 using a ZWO Seestar S50.

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[Dave Mitsky]

I captured these Seestar S50 images of M46 and NGC 2438 on 2/4/24 (left) and 12/21/24 (right) from my red zone home.

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