Current Info for Observer
as of 04/25/2024 11:49 a.m.
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General Info
| Type | Planetary Nebula |
| Constellation | Lyra |
| Right ascension | 18h53'34.900'' |
| Declination | +33°2'43'' |
| Magnitude | 8.800 |
| Distance | 4,100ly |
| Size | 1.400 arc min |
| Catalog Designations | NGC6720, M57 |
| Discovered | 1779 Antoine Darquier |
Generate a finder chart
The following form will generate a PDF finder chart suitable for printing using to locate objects in the sky with your telescope!
The Date is only really useful for solar system objects, as deep space objects move measurably only on a galactic timescale.
The larger the F.O.V (field of view), the more "zoomed out" the object will appear. It can be helpful to print several charts of the same object with different field of views.
Limiting the magnitude (remember, lower magnitude means brighter!) of stars and objects can make sure your chart is not cluttered with dim objects that you may not be visible to you anyway. The defaults are good, but try experimenting with raising and lowering the values.
Austin (5562)
Orion 10'' SkyQuest dobsonian
10 points
The last object for the night was the Ring Nebula in Lyra. By this time, some of the dinner guests' interest was beginning to fade. However, a few people's interest was still strong and they wanted to see more.
The Ring Nebula appeared as a very blurry round shape. No actual ring structure was visible, at least to me.
Dinner party astronomy session was a great success! It's rare that I am able to set up scope of relatively young crowds and hold there interest past the moon. But as as I mentioned earlier, these were some learned folk and already had some knowledge of the cosmos. That helps. I am looking forward to setting up for them again when new constellations are up.
Exoplanet1 (1645)
4.5in starblast
0 points
Took 30 minutes to find this object due to an unaligned finder. The view was very underwhelming with the ring nebula only visible as a faint circle/oval. But with my only other observation of this object being in an 8in SCT equipped with a filter my expectations were always high.
XT8i
10 points
Bright, clearly visible central hole. Much improved over my starblast. I got the best views with a 25mm, the ten millimeter proved too dark.
dam630 (431)
Orion XT8
10 points
Extremely faint nebula. Averted vision helped to see a ring-like structure. Gray only, no color discerned at all.
cyc66 (2891)
Celestron Omni XLT 150
10 points
Faint smudge using averted vision. Can sometimes see a ring structure.
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