Archived from: http://www.psiaz.com/polakis/abell/abell.html
Abell Planetary Nebulae
In 1991, I undertook a project to visually observe the planetary nebulae catalogued by
George Abell in 1966. Using a 13-inch telescope at dark Arizona sites, I was able to see
46 of the 82 Abell planetaries. Most of these required nebula filters and patience to be
seen at all. Ultimately, this project was targeted for a long observing article for
"Deep Sky" magazine, which ceased publication in 1992, midway through the
project. The published result of all the work was a two-page article about the top ten
Abell planetaries in the May 1994 issue of "Sky & Telescope."
I have recently been observing with a 20-inch telescope, and thus feel the need to
resurrect the project. I encourage other observers looking for challenging objects to give
some of these a try.
Here is a list of the entire catalogue of Abell planetaries. Note that four of them have
been eliminated, leaving 82 planetaries to hunt down. There are slight errors in some of
the positions, which were taken from Hynes' "Planetary Nebulae." The magnitude
and size data should be taken lightly, as it doesn't necessarily represent what you'll see
through the eyepiece.
POSS Images of Abell Planetaries
Since his catalogue came about as a result of Abell's inspection of Palomar Observatory
Sky Survey (POSS) plates, it seemed appropriate to download the images from the digital
sky survey. I downloaded them all, and created a large mosaic image. The file weighs in at
over 200K. In case you're intimidated by that size, check out the small sample image.
The entire mosaic
Access the Digitized POSS!
The Digitized POSS at STScI
SkyView at GSFC
Author: Tom Polakis
Last updated 29 November 1996
Curator: Hartmut Frommert
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