NGC 2022. Orions other, other, other Nebula.

By: Vlad Fedosov
02/03/2020

Object info:

Orion is a constellation that has many delights. It’s undoubtfully that you hare familiar with Orion’s great nebula; M42. For those that have access to dark skies and the appropriate filter, there is also the Horsehead nebula complex as well as the less famous m78. So what’s Orion’s other, other, other nebula??? Well, it is a small planetary nebula called NGC 2022 in the head of Orion! This planetary is a moderately bright mag 12.8 but is only 28” in size.

Observation:

Orion is a constellation that has many delights. It’s undoubtfully that you hare familiar with Orion’s great nebula; M42. For those that have access to dark skies and the appropriate filter, there is also the Horsehead nebula complex as well as the less famous m78. So what’s Orion’s other, other, other nebula??? Well, it is a small planetary nebula called NGC 2022 in the head of Orion! This planetary is a moderately bright mag 12.8 but is only 28” in size.

This nebula is not for the faint of heart and will require some steady seeing and high magnification to see anything larger than a stellar size dot. The first time I recall observing it was with my(at the time) 16” Meade Lightbridge dob. This was at a dark sky site in Moro, OR. The nebula lies south-east of the head star Meissa in Orion’s head and theoretically quite easy to find. I distinctly remember having a tough time locating the nebula because I was looking for something a bit larger. It can easily be mistaken for a star! Well after a bit of scrutiny it was located(using an Oiii filter usually helps as it will dim the background stars and makes the nebula pop out). Using a magnification of about 200x I was able to resolve it into a very small ring shape. No other detail was noted. It needed more magnification!

Following up on my visual success of the past I decided to image this little guy with my EAA rig while working through a list of small planetary nebula. Even using my Meade 12” ACF at f/10 this little guy is well, little😉 The image below was about a 6 minute EAA stack usign SharpCap and an ASI 294MC Pro astro cam. With a little scrutiny you can easily see the central star, the ring structure and two brighter knots in the outer ring. The nebula also displays a very distinct aqua color. If you are in the area of Orion and you have some decent seeing I highly encourage you to take a look at this little guy and throw all the magnification that your aperture scope will support!