Having seen the HST image of Eta Carinae below hundreds of times, I thought the dumbbell shaped nebula - Homunculus Nebula is something invisible to amateurs. However, during Jan. 11 morning's ob session with an 10inch Dob, we managed to see it, pretty much by accident, but it really rocks!
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[/align]Initially I was just browsing through the field of Keyhole Nebula, when I reached Eta Carinae, how come the star is not properly focused? Then all of a sudden I remembered the HST image, OH MY GOD, isn't this the thing in that image!!!??? It's like the orange color Eta Carinae is sandwiched between two orange color shells, one of the shells is apparently brighter and closer to us. Closer inspection (with a bit of averted vision) even revealed some dark features in the brighter shell, so similar to the Hubble image! Imagine that I was looking at the gas shells thrown out by the 1843 eruption of Eta Carinae, and within these 200 years it’s become so big and beautiful.
I’m quite surprised how I could have missed this beauty so many times during previous ob sessions. Maybe aperture is important here. I also saw this nebula through a 130mm Newtonian during this ob, though the nebulosity was still visible, but much less obvious.
Maybe this nebula is something normal for observers at these latitudes, but wow, for me it really rocks! Seeing the color and a star which is about to explode, wow, just cannot resist…
Clear skies,
Jia Hao
