2020 Observations

Forums General Discussion 2020 – how was it for you? 2020 Observations

#583626
Mike Harlow
Participant

A modest 56 nights of imaging from home in 2020 with a hand full of remote telescope sessions.  My main targets are variable nebulae with the majority of images being of Gyulbudaghian’s nebula which had a dramatic fade.  A remote image of McNeil’s nebula showed that it was still invisible and Hind’s nebula showed little change in shape.

Two novae appeared that were initially bright enough for both imaging and low resolution spectroscopy. Nova Cas 2020 has now undergone a deep dust fade but may well brighten again in the next few months.  Nova Persei remains bright enough for spectroscopy and should be interesting to watch as it fades in the next few months.

And there was that comet…NEOWISE.  I don’t have the technology or skill to get stunning images but a simple set-up did reveal the sodium tail early in the apparition.

Looking forward to seeing how some of these objects change in 2021.

Mike.