[AZ-Observing] Sh2-240 or Simeis 147 in Taurus

  • From: "Steve Coe" <stevecoe@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <amastro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 07:07:25 -0700

Howdy all;

I had a great weekend during new moon and spent some time at
Sentinel, Arizona, a dark site about 100 miles from Phoenix.
Here is an observation of Sh2-240 or Simeis 147.

6" f/6 Maksutov-Newtonian Sentinel S=6 T=8
35mm Panoptic + UHC filter  very faint, extremely large, filamentary,
over two fields of view with my widest field telescope ever!
This object is composed of very faint striations of nebulosity
across a wide area of the sky.  However, this is a rich
Winter Milky Way field of view. So, it is difficult to determine
what is nebulosity and what are chains of very faint stars in
the field.  

On Uranometria 136 this is the section that is south and east 
of ET Tau.  The split "elephant trunk" section is easier, but still 
very faint, extremely large, a thin filament that is just thicker 
than the  other sections of this low surface brightness object.  

The Hood helps quite a bit.  It is still tough to see, but easier with 
the dark cloth covering my head.  It seems that the Hood does
two things:  blocks off extraneous light and forces my attention
to the eyepiece as the only source of light in my field of vision.

I was happy to be able to detect this very faint object in the
little six inch Mak-Newt.

Clear Skies to us all;
Steve Coe

stevecoe@xxxxxxxxx
Author:  Deep Sky Observing--The Astronomical Tourist
Saguaro Astronomy Club web site:
www.saguaroastro.org

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