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 -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.