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NGC7048 (Planetary Nebula, in Cygnus)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light Transparency: good Seeing: fair
Time: Wed Jul 2 08:40:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 183
I decided to go for a fainter planetary; Burnham's lists this one at mag 11, dimensions 60" x 50". At 49x a fleeting, irregular glow was visible in the area of three field stars. At 122x, averted vision showed what I thought was nebulosity surrounding those three stars, plus an oblong patch extending to the north. I recorded in my notes that there was definitely _something_ there, but that it didn't look much like a planetary. Checking the Palomar Sky Survey print on the Web at STScI, though, I could see what was really going on: There was indeed an oval planetary north of the three field stars, as well as several fainter stars surrounding them, leading me to combine the two limit-of-visibility phenomena into one big, faint patch.
NGC7027 (Planetary Nebula, in Cygnus)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light Transparency: good Seeing: fair
Time: Wed Jul 2 08:20:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 182
Per Burnham's, a mag 9 planetary, 18" x 11". At 49x I at first mistook it for a star, but then noticed that it appeared slightly oblong, and refused to come to a point at best focus. At 244x I could tell that it was elongated in a northwest/southeast direction. The SE side seemed slightly more tenuous at the edges than the NW side under averted vision. Interestingly, the Tirion atlas (and the dObjects observation record), treats it as a bright nebula, not a planetary. Burhnam's notes that it has "the richest spectrum of all the planetaries"; apparently someone has since figured out that it wasn't actually a planetary.
NGC6826 (Planetary Nebula, in Cygnus)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light Transparency: good Seeing: fair
Time: Wed Jul 2 08:00:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 181
Per Burnham's, a mag 8.8, 25"-diameter planetary. Was an easy fuzzy "star" at 49x. At 122x was a ghostly little circle, gray and uniform. At 244x I could see the central star with averted vision, and thought I detected a slight elongation in an east-west direction, and just possibly a hint of structure in the outer reaches.
NGC6210 (Planetary Nebula, in Hercules)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light Transparency: good Seeing: fair
Time: Sun Jun 29 09:00:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 166
It required careful starhopping in a star-poor region (I really need a Uranometria atlas!). Once I was there, though, it was easy to see this planetary at 49x, though it was hard to be sure that it was nonstellar. At 244x, though, it was clearly a small, round, uniform patch. I believed I could detect a slight greenish tint.
M57 (Ring Nebula) (Planetary Nebula, in Lyra)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light Transparency: good Seeing: fair
Time: Sun Jun 29 06:15:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 158
I dragged Linda out of the house in her bathrobe (actually, it was _my_ bathrobe :-) to look at the Ring Nebula. I think she was too sleepy to really get into it, but she made some appropriate "oohing" and "ahhing" noises. I looked for the dimmings of the ring that are apparent at the points where it intersects the object's major axis on some photographs, but couldn't see them. I wonder if this is dependent on viewing in a particular color. I didn't see any detail to speak of in the ring itself.
M57 (Ring Nebula) (Planetary Nebula, in Lyra)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light Transparency: good Seeing: good
Time: Tue Jun 24 06:30:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 154
Couldn't resist a quick look at M57 before coming inside. Viewed it at 49x, 122x, and 244x (as high as I can go, currently, with the 10mm eyepiece and 2x barlow); each view was better than the last. It's an amazing object, looking pretty much like the photographs, even in my smallish scope. A thick, oval ring with the inside obviously brighter than the outside.
M57 (Ring Nebula) (Planetary Nebula, in Lyra, Est. RaDec 18h 54m, 33.02)
Observer: Alan Shaffer (e-mail: milkyway@gte.net, web: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/3693/)
Instrument: 10-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector Location: Mt. Pinos, California, US
Light pollution: none Transparency: excellent Seeing: excellent
Time: Sat Jun 7 10:00:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 149
This was a rather easy find. M57 is positioned in a rather star poor area of the sky. At first sight I noticed the colors. It looked like I was looking at a prisim, full of color, but mostly greenish. This is a beautiful object because it sits in nearly pure dark skies by itself. The ring was easy to observe. No effort needed to see the central area, even at 104X. A very nice object
M57 (Ring Nebula) (Planetary Nebula, in Lyra)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: moderate Transparency: fair Seeing: fair
Time: Mon Mar 17 12:55:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 114
As the dawn started to brighten the E sky, I turned to my first telescopic viewing of M57. It was great! The best view was at 244x, which showed the object as a big, oval smoke ring, with the hole inside the ring being noticeably brighter than the surrounding blackness.
M97 (Owl Nebula) (Planetary Nebula in Ursa Major)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 50-mm binoculars Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light Transparency: fair Seeing: good
Time: Thu Jan 30 07:05:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 27
Spent a half hour trying (and failing) to spot it with the 7x50s. I actually think I may have glimpsed it several times once I got serious about figuring out just where it was, but it was pretty subliminal. I sketched the location, though, and it seemed to match the 13-inch Lowell Observatory photo in Burnham's. Sigh. I'll try again with the binoculars some night when the transparency is better.
M76 (Barbell Nebula) (Planetary Nebula in Perseus)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 50-mm binoculars Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: none Transparency: excellent Seeing: fair
Time: Mon Jan 6 05:15:00 1997 UT Obs. no.: 8
Detected, but only by referring carefully to its charted position. In 7x50s was indistinguishable from a very faint star, except perhaps by its refusal to become a real pinpoint even under patient averted vision.
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