by Ron Bhanukitsiri
If there were any doubt left about the satisfying view through the TV-102; it was completely washed away tonight! Seeing was fair/good with LM=6 at my eastern sky. This morning around midnight (11/17/01), I observed NGC 2393, the Eskimo Nebula. Easily found at 22x (40mm Pentax XL). Immediately, I notice his "wife", the yellowish 8.2 magnitude star SAO 79428 "standing besides him". The nebula and the star looked like a double star. Even at 22x, the Eskimo was obviously non-stellar and slight larger than the star. 30x (30mm Ultima) gave a similar view. Bluish green at 60x; direct vision caused the nebula to blink and disappear totally. The 10.6 mag central star was easily seen. Got very interesting at 110x (8mm TV Radian) with a round shape nebulosity and bright. Direct vision does not make it go away. Central star very easily seen. *Brighter* nebulosity at 146x (6mm Radian). 176x (5mm Tak LE), 220x (4mm Radian), and 293x (3mm Radian) were all intoxicating! The Eskimo retained his brightness and the nebulosity simply kept getting larger and larger. So I went for broke with my Ultima 2X Barlow. The Eskimo retains his brightness at 352x and graniness in the nebulosity can now be detected! But lost color after 293x. Dim slightly at 440x but graininess is still apparent. Took a while to get focus right at 586x; the Eskimo got a dimmed further, but still plenty bright with graininess! I've never used this igloo size magnification on any PN so far. Wow, what a view! The Eskimo and wife are truly worth hospital to the TV-102. BTW, I can't say I saw any "clown face", the other name for NGC 2392.
Before I called it for the night, the TV-102 went looking for M78. I had a note from observing M78 last year from my old C102-HD achromat as "disappointing". Most certainly not with the TV-102! Small nebulostiy was seen at 22x with bright center. A hint of a double star in the middle of the nebula at 30x. 60x definitely revealed a presence of what looked like a "double star" lodged right in the middle of a fairly bright nebulosity. I was strucked by horror at 110x 'cause M78 revealed itself as an erie ghost with two eyes. 146x made the nebula brighter. But the erie feeling turned into panic at 220x when all of the surrounding stars were no longer seen and the ghost simply was staring at me with two bright eyes. At this point, I got the feeling someone was looking at me behind my back. I hurrily packed up, called it the night. I christened M78 with a new name in my Bee catalog as the "Ghost and Mr. Chicken Nebula" ;-).
A really, really fun night with the TV-102 with many other objects observed (but too tired to write it up ;-)!