Observations of IC418

These are the observations available for IC418. If you have any of your own that you'd like to submit we'd love to put them on the website.

• A few finds in Lepus

  It was my initial intention to stay in Orion and look for more faint planetary nebulae. Here I have to report 2 failures.

  The first one was absolutely zero seen of PK204-8.1, this according to images is a lovely ring structure. I could detect nothing, not a hint. I spent an hour trying with settings on the monitor and camera turning the exposure up to 20-sec integration and still nothing. I could see the stars that are superimposed on the nebula, all the field stars down to magnitude 19 or fainter but no nebulosity and I knew exactly where it would be!

  Next PK215-30.1, I could see nothing at the location, looking at images this was less surprising than the first failure as it was a diffuse and tenuous nebula. Studying the monitor with the knowledge of what the nebula looked like, well maybe there was some milky structure there but I was far from sure so I moved on.

  I dropped down into Lepus and changed quarry to galaxies.

  Arp 123 was a revisit, last sketched back in 2013. This time I pulled out a little more of the dust lane than previously and sketched in some fainter stars than back in 2013. I also caught a nice little PGC 172117 with a central bulge just out of the field-of-view to the south. I made a quick shape sketch in the info margin of the main sketch.

  

  Next I got a nice little first, NGC 1843 a fine SC spiral, magnitude 12.7, two arms seen, mottled central region and a couple of superimposed brighter stars, a nice object.

  

  IC 418 (PK 215-24.1) was an interesting and surprising observation, to cut a long story short, using the camera in the usual setting format the nebula appeared as a bright circular and uniform disc.

  I know it is basically a fairly bright star and a faint spherical nebula in line of sight association. The camera appeared to be combining the two! If I turned it up to max 20-sec integration then the object displayed diffraction spikes. However if I turned the camera right down to a very short integration time that would just show down to magnitude 5-7 stars then a small nebulous disc appeared with an obvious associated star, as drawn. I can't work it out but I have recorded what I saw, and from my perspective it is what it was on the video camera.

  

  That is all I have to share. This persistent haze or clag as they say north of Watford really has put the kibosh on what could have been a nice little winter run for us deep sky peeps.

  Dale Holt - (21 January 2020).