I finally crawled out of bed this morning after many resets of my alarm clock, at about 4:00 am. My 8" Skywatcher reflector was ready to go because I set it up before I went to bed.
The goal was to find and view the Crab Nebula, which I had never seen before. My scoping partner Dave had talked about it many times but we had never gone after it. He stopped by at 4:00 am and the search was on...
Dave scanned the sky for about 10 minutes with no luck. I then took my turn and thought for sure that I could find it. I could not find it either. It is a magnitude 8.4, which should be a little brighter than the Ring Nebula (M57) in the constellation Lyra, so I expected it to be pretty easy to fine. Wrong. We both tried a few more times with no luck. I had to go to work soon so I was ready to give up. With one more try before heading out, a very faint smudge came into the eye piece. The Crab Nebula is so faint in my 8" scope that it was almost undetectable! I had no idea it was going to be so faint. We slowly worked up to more powerful eyepieces and also tried Dave's shorty 2x barlow. That just made the view worse and it becomes very difficult to focus at these magnifications.
I read after work that at least a 16" telescope is necessary to actually see any detail (and I believe that!). I find it strange that it should be a little brighter than the Ring Nebula because of its lower magnitude. The Ring Nebula is much easier than the Crab(if you know why please fill me in). So until I get a bigger scope the Crab is will just remain a smudge...
The next step will be to try to photograph it using a minute or so exposure. This will help to bring out some detail.
But at least we found it and now have first hand knowledge about how hard it is to see. I hope this gives somebody out there some insight on what is required to see the elusive Crab Nebula.
Mike
