Barnard 68

[Preston Pendergraft]

Anyone have experience with this one? It is on the AL Stellar Evolution pin list, and all I can find is this a challenge object from the Houston Astronomy Club observing blog and a dead link on DeepSkyPedia.

I am getting my observing checklists ready for the Stellar Evolution pin and came across this one...

Here is a link to the Houston blog
www.astronomyhouston.org/newsletters/guidestar/shallow-sky-object-month-barnard-68-dark-nebula

[lamperti]

Ironically, it was 1 year ago today that I "saw" it with a 22" U.C. My short note is: "Small, star-less area of sky."

[When I explained to my Astrowidow what a dark nebula was, she said: "You mean, if you didn't see it, you saw it!". She nearly rolled on the floor with laughter!]

Al

[Steve Gottlieb]

Here are a couple of observations I've made with my 18". If you observe B68, then you should also look for B69 and B70 to the southeast, as all three are in the same low power field. Barnard himself described B68 as "small; irregular; sharply defined; diam 4'; about 20' SW of B 72 ["Snake Nebula"].

18" (7/11/10): this is the most prominent of three Barnard DN with B69 and B70, oriented NW to SE. This is the NW patch and appears as a fairly prominent dark hole, 4'-5' diameter, surrounded by the faint, glowing Milky Way background. A mag 10 star is just off the NW side. B69 lies ~10' SSE and B70 is 18' SE. The Snake Nebula (B72) lies ~18' NE.

18" (6/17/04): fairly easy dark nebula. The dark cloud is roundish, ~5' diameter and completely devoid of stars. The surrounding Milky Way field glows faintly so the object stands out reasonably well, but it falls short of being a striking object. A mag 10 star is off the west side and several other mag 12 stars were near the periphery. Viewed at 73x (31 Nagler) up to 225x, though the view was best at 115x or 160x. This small, dense molecular cloud is similar to a Bok globule.

[Clear Skies]

http://www.clearskies.eu/webfiles/temp/DSF/B68.jpg

[Uwe Glahn]

Nice DN beside the "Snake" B 72. B 68 seems to be the darkest DN in the "Snake region"

14,5", 83x, NELM 7m+ (Hakos/Namibia)
http://www.deepsky-visuell.de/Zeichnungen/B72.jpg