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Orion's Ring Nebula652 viewsYes Orion has a ring nebula too but it took 3 nights and 4 different filters to get it. The red colour is mostly Nitrogen and the central star is UV/violet so filter choice was trial and error. David R
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Deep-Sky Object in Canis Minor375 viewsYour planetarium programs won’t show many deep-sky objects in Canis Minor but there is one good one. It’s the planetary nebula Abell 24 which despite being virtually unknown turned out to be worth imaging. David R
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Born Again Planetary Nebula361 viewsVery easy to locate, just south-east of the Beehive Cluster in Cancer but boy is Abell 30 faint. Took 5 nights and 8 hours to get enough signal. There's a famous Hubble image of it but they reversed the colours - Hydrogen is blue and Oxygen is red. Until I found this out I couldn't make sense of my image!!!! David R
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Planetary Nebula Abell 31 (Sh2-290) 637 viewsAbell 31 is perhaps the largest planetary nebula. It has a larger apparent size than the Helix Nebula yet Benedict at al. (2009) using the HST found it to be 3 times further away at around 2000 light years. They used parallax to determine its distance. Biggest or not, this ancient planetary nebula is seriously faint!!!!!
Exposure: 7 hours over 3 nights. DR
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A Galaxy points the Way198 viewsThe tiny planetary nebula Abell 4 is Located close to the open cluster M34 and a background galaxy (PGC 2201333) seemingly points towards it. Abell 4 is listed as mag 16.7 and its central star at 19.4 but in imaging terms it does not appear to be that faint. David R.
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Planetary Nebula Abell 5558 viewsThis Planetary Nebula does exist but there is virtually no data or images of it! I was asked if I had an image by Owen Brazell, writer of Deep-sky Challenge in Astronomy Now magazine, but following my reports that is was mighty faint he decided this was a challenge too hard even for the big Dobsonian boys. David R.
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Aquila's Ring Nebula351 viewsMy first image of this autumn's session. Listed as magnitude 14.1 but effectively it is much fainter than that! The large number of stars makes it difficult to drag it up out of the background. David R.
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The Death Star 424 viewsActually the death of a star not the Death Star from Star Wars but it does look a bit like it. In real life it is the planetary nebula Abell 6. Located in Cassiopeia this very faint nebula needed exposures over 4 nights to get a decent image. David R
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Close Encounter642 viewsThe planetary nebulae Abell 6 and HFG1 are less than 40 arcmins apart but they couldn't be more different - very much "little and large". Due to the rapid motion of HFG1 this chance encounter won't last long - well on galactic time sales that is! David R.
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Emission Nebula Abell 71424 viewsBoth Abell and later Perek & Kohoutek both misclassified this object as a planetary nebula. It is actually an emission nebula but it does appear to have an unusual spiral pattern so was perhaps an easy mistake to make. David R.
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Planetary Nebula, Abell 72359 viewsLocated in Delphinus, this rather poorly known planetary nebula is catalogued as magnitude 13.8 and with a size of 2.2 arcminutes on its long axis. Just below (south) of the nebula is the background galaxy PGC 65491 which appears to be a somewhat distorted spiral. David R
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Planetary Nebula, Abell 74 328 viewsLocated in Vulpecula, this planetary nebula is a very old, very large, very round and very faint! It took 14 hours exposure over 4 nights to drag it out of the sky background! The red elliptical fuzzy above centre (half way from the centre to the top north edge) is background galaxy PGC66471.
DR
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Planetary Nebula Abell 78528 viewsLocated in Cygnus. Abell 78 is one the rare class of "born again" planetary nebulae. It was studied in detail by ESA using their XMM-Newton X-ray space based obseravtory - see their site for background info. Quite a faint object but I perhaps went a bit overboard at13.5 hours.
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Lost in M38385 viewsBrought to my attention by Andrew Robertson, who was struggling to see this faint planetary nebula just above M38. This image was subsequently posted on the Deep Sky Forum by Owen Brazell to see if anyone had succeeded visually and if so, with what aperture. So far no reported sightings - it's magnitude 18.9! David R
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Escaping the Void231 viewsAlfaZoa is the galaxy that my talk finished with on Tuesday. It is one of only 2 attested galaxies within the Local Void and it is escaping fast. It was discovered with the Arecibo Radio Telescope. David R.
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Andromeda 1219 viewsYou would have thought Andromeda I would be the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) but not so. It is the first of several dwarf (dSph) satellite galaxies of M31. Only discovered in 1970 by Sidney van den Bergh with the Mount Palomar 48-inch Schmidt Telescope, which gives you some idea that it must be faint - and it is! David R.
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Peculiar Galaxies Arp 1 and Arp 285 435 viewsOriginally published in 1966, The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies is a catalogue of peculiar galaxies produced by Halton Arp. You would imagine that the first entry in his list, Arp 1, would be the most peculiar of all but not so. It is a perfectly regular face-on Sc type spiral (just above middle). Arp included it because he thought it was of low surface brightness. It is compared to the interacting pair Arp 285, NGC 2854 and 2856, (lower right) but these are the "peculiar" ones, not Arp 1. DR
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Baade 1566 viewsVery few images and virtually no data available for this planetary nebula in Taurus. In addition several catalogues have this object's coordinates wrong. Discovered by Walter Baade in the 1930s with the 100 inch telescope. Central star is 17.1 mag.. David R.
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Bear's Paw Galaxy, Arp 6363 viewsThe first galaxy in Arp's Catalogue of Peculiar Galaxies that looks peculiar! Classed as a BCD - Blue Compact Dwarf - and as such comprises a elliptical/spherical halo with several very bright star forming knots. David R.
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Blazar - BL Lacertae283 viewsIt took many years for astronomers to work out what this object was - it has a featureless spectrum. We now know it is a Blazar - a quasar where the jet from its central black hole is pointing straight at us. Its distance is around 900 million light years. David R.
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