Inspired by a thread in the Deep Sky Observing forum and still hankering for some proto planetary nebulae, I got a chance to observe IC 5217 last night before Lacerta sets in the west as the year ends. My gosh, yea, it's pretty small and star like. I crept up on it at 66x just to get into the star field. I knew one of those stars was the nebula. So I crept ever higher eventually settling on 600x with 8" f/6, APM 10mm UFF, and ES 5x focal extender. Seeing was not all that great, my star images only occasionally condensed into tiny pin points. With IC 5217, I dared not try a UHC filter at 600x. I found the basically north south elongation obvious, described as an unresolved double star lacking the figure 8 pinch. I could see both lobes with the slightest trace of bifurcation (made a little easier to see in the sketch). But, nothing at all like it's namesake(?) "the Little Saturn Nebula". Nope, not at all. Still, I've never seen it before. Now, I have. Nice observation tonight despite the seeing.
Edited by Asbytec, 30 October 2021 - 05:33 AM.
