Ranking Planetary Nebulae

[Mark]

So, your faves?

Which do you find show the most detail?

Which are the toughest nuts you've cracked?

I was looking at an image of Minkowski's Butterfly (saw in Alsing's scope at Bumpass Hell) and wondered, are all planetaries bi-polar by their nature, or high percentage?

Reply with list, description if possible, instrument, filters or not, etc.

Moon's growing and temps are dropping....

[Mark]

BTW, at first I googled images of Markarians Butterfly.  Very detailed... LOL.

[Peter Natscher]

Two planetaries I like very much are one's that exhibit a rare warm color.

[Jeff Gortatowsky]

Anything stellar buried in the Milky Way that takes an hour to find, if at all found, and all you can do is blink it! Love em!

[Mark W]

Jeff, can you put together a Masochist's Guide To Planetaries list?

Mark

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From: sf-ba...@googlegroups.com <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jeff Gortatowsky <jeff.gor...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2023, 8:25 PM
To: sf-ba...@googlegroups.com <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [TAC] Re: Ranking Planetary Nebulae

Anything stellar buried in the Milky Way that takes an hour to find, if at all found, and all you can do is blink it! Love em!

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[Richard Ozer]

Kent Wallace's book on Planetary Nebulae serves well as a masochist's guide.  One of my most frustrating experiences was trying to photograph Jones-1 in Pegasus.  What a mess that was.

Not my photo, but you get the idea:

PK104-29.1 (Jones 1) (stellarscenes.net)

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[Mark W]

Jones 1?  The Horseshoe?

Mark

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Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2023, 9:06 PM

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[Richard Ozer]

I don't know it's colloquial name. But, it's a very fun visual target. Not to be confused with Jones-Embersin 1, in Lynx.

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[Mark]

Richard, I called it The Horseshoe, I don't think its known by that though.  It seems the shape to me, from my memory of it.  I haven't viewed it in a long time.

Peter!  Love the observing forms and sketches.  Those are classic shaped planetaries. Interesting you viewed one from home, the other from Panoche.  Where at Panoche - DARC?  I also note that I haven't seen IC 418, its coincidentally the challenge target on Cloudy NIghts currently.

My faves tend to be with lots of dark and bright areas:

1.  CatsEye, NGC 6543 - on best nights it has tons of inner and outer detail, well defined torus/shells, extended portions that are challenging.

2.  Fetus, NGC 7008 - very rich detail and unusual dark/bright areas.

3.  Little Dumbbell - M76 - tons of detail at wide range of magnification, filtered and not.

Hard to limit a "best" list - Eskimo, NGC 40 as  you mention, Owl, all sorts of good targets.  Tough Nuts?  I still haven't picked out Campbells Hydrogen Star.  Rich star fields are difficult.

[mccart...@yahoo.com]

I'm really fascinated by all the obscure & fascinating PN I can now see using night vision, such as Sh2-174, which has broken up and started to drift away from its central star.  This helps me visualize the universe as a changing, dynamic place -- and PN are, of course, emblematic of change, being dying stars.

But for a favorite PN accessible visually, I really like these two:

"NGC 6309, a PN in Oph, 11.5v.  Using my 20-inch, “Exclamation Point Nebula”: Bizarre looking bright cigar shaped PN elongated 3:1 NNW-SSE with a bright star off the NNW tip, making it appear as an exclamation point.  Used 333x; UHC helped contrast.  The NNW portion of the PN is brighter.  According to Wikipedia it is quadrupolar but I did not resolve the separate portions."

"NGC 6572, PN in Oph, 8.1v, 16”x13”: in the 20-inch: “Emerald Nebula”: Very bright and a very beautiful deep green color.  No filter needed.  Out of round and orientated N-S.  I think I saw a central star flash out of the very bright central region when using averted vision, very brief.  The edge is hazy and seems to be a diffuse outer shell."

Mark

[Richard Ozer]

Campbell's H star is a challenge. But with large aperture, it pops right out. I've observed it and photographed it in the Chabot 36, and also observed it through the Mt. Wilson 60". I felt like I was cheating.

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[Ted Hauter]

PEG 1 Amazing object! Never seen that.

Let me try a dlsr sometime when I get my mirrorless.

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[Paul Alsing]

My favorite planetary nebula is NGC 3242, the Ghost of Jupiter in Hydra. By far the best view for me was on November 17th, 2006, at the  Cassegrain focus of the 82"  at McDonald Observatory in Texas. The maximum FOV for this 25 ton telescope is a little more than 5' when using a 35mm Televue Panoptic, which yielded 812X. The transparency was phenomenal and the seeing was sub-arcsecond for both nights of observing and there were 16 people in attendance.

My notes for NGC 3242 are as follows... "... This PNe has a large slightly oval shape and shows multiple shells, with a bright central star, several other observers used the word "bagel". The innermost ring is small and dark, and had a purple-tinged outer edge. The next shell outwards is a bright crepe-like ring, shocking aqua in color. This is followed by a broader ring that is distinctly salmon or pink in color, my notes call it a "filling", and virtually everyone saw it this way. Lastly was another aqua ring, thinner than the pink ring, and not quite as vibrant in hue as the other aqua ring; it is almost perfectly uniform in width and looked like a racetrack. Curiously, the real-time view in this telescope looks nothing like any picture of this object that I have seen, and I've searched extensively to find a picture that even slightly resembles what I saw. None at all. To see this, I guess you need to book a night on the 82"..."

Over 2 nights our group observed 49 objects, and if you want to read all of my notes you can find them here... 

http://www.pnalsing.com/82-report

... and there are several other PNs that were observed that weekend.

Paul Alsing

On Saturday, January 28, 2023 at 11:47:53 AM UTC-8 Mark wrote:

[Jeff Gortatowsky]

I believe Kent Wallace has already done so. 

Oh snap. Ozer beat me to it

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Jeff Gortatowsky - California

Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a telescope, which is about the same thing!"

"Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." Think about it.

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[Mark]

Hi Jeff,

I don't have Kent's book.  I've never seen it either.  I remember him at CalStar many moonless nights ago, but haven't heard his name is over a decade.

I was actually more interested in what TACos thought of various planetaries.

But regarding Kent's book, does it contain hundreds of stellar targets that you could have great fun blinking with a filter?  If you like that sort of thing?  Does is rank them in some way (toughest, prettiest, largest, farthest, absurdness)?

[Jeff Gortatowsky]

Mark

I knew what you meant. I was just being... me... ask Julien. :) 

BTW: The book was only what he saw in a 20cm SCT. 

I have a whole spreadsheet he sent me long ago with even more!

Fave? IC418 I guess. At least it is my sentimental fav. And then there is M47's little guy.

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Jeff Gortatowsky - California

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[Mark]

Well Jeff, you are good at being you.  I think you've perfected it, actually.

M47 = M46?