Observation Notes:
Persistent clouds were making it exceptionally difficult to sketch the core of M16. So I took a break and decided to look for something in a part of the sky not dancing with clouds. Hercules was in decent position, so I scanned my SkyAtlas 2000.0 for something in the vicinity and picked out this beautiful planetary nebula.
It showed up as a non-stellar, blue-green object at 37X and took magnification well. I really could have used more power than 240X. It held on to its blue-green color at high power, and appeared to have a faint outer halo surrounding an irregular inner core. These irregularities gave this nebula the appearance of a rectangle with rounded corners or nodules. These corners appeared at the 1:00, 5:00, 7:00 and 10:30 positions as seen in the eyepiece. The core was not stellar, but slightly brighter.
Object Information:
Discovered by Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve in 1825. NGC 6210 is also cataloged as: PK43+37.1, h 1970, GC 4234
| Subject | NGC 6210 |
| Classification* | Planetary Nebula (2(3b)) |
| Position* | Hercules [RA: 16:44:29.4 / Dec: +23:48:00] |
| Size* | 48" x 8" |
| Brightness* | 8.8 vMag |
| Date/Time | July 3, 2008 - 1:30 AM MST (July 3, 2008 - 08:30 UT) |
| Observing Loc. | Anderson Mesa, Arizona, USA |
| Instrument | Orion SkyQuest XT8 (203 mm dia./1200 mm F/L) |
| Eyepieces/Mag. | 10 mm Sirius Plössl + 2X Barlow (240X) + UltraBlock |
| Conditions | Partly-Mostly Cloudy, calm |
| Seeing | 6/10 Pickering |
| Transparency | ~ Mag 6-7 NELM |
| *References | NGCIC.org |
