The Section has had a programme for a while to monitor the behaviour of variable nebulae and I am keen to continue this. The erratic behaviour of these objects is not totally understood and a series of regular images is needed. Even if visual observers see nothing, that is still a valuable piece of information provided full details of telescope / observing conditions etc are noted.

Dave Green, an astronomer at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, in Cambridge, lists 235 galactic supernova remnants on his web site. Unfortunately, although this may be the true at radio wavelengths, the amateur visual observer or imager is rather hard done by and has to make do with only a handful of objects.

The Deep Sky Section Handbook No.2 - A Messier Catalogue - is now almost sold out. Although the data it contains is as relevant as ever, the handbook has a slightly dated look to it in an age when people expect to see glorious colour images in publications. The Messier objects are usually the first serious list of deep sky objects that a newcomer observes and I can still recall my thrill at completing the list.

I would like to collect images of as many local group galaxies as possible. There are over 40 in the group but the majority will probably be beyond the reach of amateurs. However, many are easy - M31 is naked eye and M33 can be from a good sky. There are others that are challenging but not impossible. For starters I suggest the following objects.

One of the most beautiful emission nebula in the summer sky must be the Veil in Cygnus. Always a target for imagers, the advent of nebular filters has turned the Veil into a visual showpiece object for owners of large telescopes at star parties. They have also allowed it to be seen in small refractors, where the wider field of view of the modern short focal length instrument will often allow both eastern and western parts of the Veil to be seen together. Under a good sky parts of the Veil are also readily visible in binoculars without a filter, and some observers in the USA even claim it is naked eye with an OIII filter. The late Walter Scott Houston, in his Sky &Telescope column, reported that experienced observers had detected it naked eye through a UHC filter.