Glad to have a clear night to observe Orion with my Nexstar 8SE. Nice views of M42, M43 and M78 then onto the more difficult stuff. I found the combination of Sky Safari 3 Pro and Deep Sky Browser very helpful in checking I was in the right star field. tracking was good all night.
I compared the TeleVue Delos 17.3mm with the Vixen VLW 22mm eyepieces. The Delos certainly is flat and sharp right to the edge of the image but somehow looked a bit “processed”. Stars looked a little more natural in the Vixen. The 72 degree field of view in the Delos was impressive and appeared wider than the 68 degree field of the Vixen.
I just couldnt see some of the bright nebulae in and around Orion – I suspect I will need long exposure imaging to see them at all. Here’s the list of new targets:
NGC 2022 PN Orion
NGC 1999 EN RN Orion Rubber stamp nebula
NGC 1788 RN Orion
NGC 1977 RN Orion Running man nebula
NGC 1980 EN Orion
NGC 2194 OC Orion
NGC 1647 OC Orion
NGC 2169 OC Orion Shopping cart cluster
Collinder 70 OC Orion
LDN 1616 Dark nebula Orion
NGC 1647 OC Taurus
NGC 1746 OC Taurus