We explore the celestial highlights located around the western foot of Perseus
(e) Þ brings you close to IC 351. A 300mm scope shows a small stellar object at low powers, while increased magnification reveals a circular-looking disc with surface brightness. High power views show that the disc is not uniform in brightness, with a number of bright spots around its periphery. SEEN IT.
IC 2003 is another planetary nebula, this time located at the mid-point of the line joining Xi to Zeta Persei, which shines at mag. +11.5 and has apparent dimensions of 7 x 6 arcseconds. Small scopes tend to deliver a view that hardly differentiates the planetary from the surrounding stars; while a larger aperture will reveal its disc and show that unlike IC 351, this planetary nebula appears to show a brighter condensation at its centre. Its host star, located at nebula’s centre, is faint at mag. +16.5. SEEN IT.
5 IC 1514
4 IC 2003
We cross into Taurus to round off a planetary nebulae hat-trick. IC 1514 is found by extending a line from Atik (Omicron (o)) to Zeta Persei, 1.5x times again. IC 1514’s central star is reasonably bright at mag. +9.4, while two slightly brighter stars flank the nebula, one of mag. +8.4, 8 arcminutes to the north, and one of mag. +8.1, 8.5 arcminutes to the south. This is a larger object than our two previous targets; it presents a 1 arcminute disc with a 150mm scope, increasing to 2 arcminutes with a 300mm. Larger apertures also show the nebula to have a ‘texture’ of irregular brightness. SEEN IT.
6 IC 348
Our final target is back in Perseus. IC 348 sits just to the south of Atik. It’s best described as a cluster with embedded nebulosity, also known as reflection nebula VdB 19. The most prominent pattern is a right-angled triangle formed from mag. +8.5, +9.9 and +10.8 stars, with the longest side of the triangle being around 6 arcminutes. Most of the fainter cluster stars are seen around the two stars marking the triangle’s eastern edge; a faint ring-like pattern may be seen. The nebula is tricky to see visually due to Atik’s close proximity, but its brightest portion surrounds the northwest star in the triangle, HIP 17465, which has a mag. +9.7 companion next to it. SEEN IT.