Planetary in Orphiucus. Seeing was unusually steady and sky magnitude is 5 or better. Observation was between 10:00pm to 11:30pm PDT time.
60x: 30mm Ultima + 2X Ultima Barlow, 110x: 8mm TV Radian
146x: 6mm TV Radian, 176x: 5mm Tak LE, 220x: 4mm TV Radian
293x: 3mm TV Radian, 352x: 5mm Tak LE + 2X Ultima Barlow
First target was the 8.1 magnitude NGC 6572 (the Blue Racketball). This object has been eluding me for about one month now because I was using freebie charts. Tonight with a paid-for The Sky chart, it was still tough to locate by star hopping, being so tiny. At 60x, it still looked like a star. At 110x, the nearby stars are all dimmer, expect the PN. It has blue-green color and still looked like a lightly bloated star that can't come to focus. At 146x (still blue-green), better view and definitely a PN. The 60 degree FOV of the Radian allowed me to see the PN as a ball and the stars to east forming a racket (5 stars forms a racket and 3 stars form racket's handle – SAO123243, GSC443:638, 443:1000, 443:2045, 443:1596,
Next tough one was 11.5 magnitude NGC 6309 (the Box Nebula). This one is easier to star hop and much larger than NCG 6572, but a heck of lot dimmer. At 110x, it's exposed as elongated dim smudge. PN was brighter than the 12.9 magnitude star GSC5652:1465 that forms part of a square to the west of the nebula. At 146x, the PN looked like 2 dim stars inside the PN. At 175x , the PN looks dimmer now. At 220x, much dimmer, 1 (12.1 magnitude GSC5653:201) star now clearly seen outside nebula to the north.
This observation illustrates the usefullness of the Radian's 60 degree AFOV.
It also raise a question about the 4" limiting magnitude of 12.0 which I prosed a questions in Talking Telescopes and Refractor eGroup.