Sky & Telescope - June 2021 - 32

Sendero Planetaries

X CHEERIO NEBULA This
pretty planetary, whose
ofﬁcial designation is
NGC 6337, ﬂoats near the
Scorpion's stinger.

grayish nebula at 160× only a few days before IC 1297 exited
the sendero. However, I never observed the 12.9-magnitude
variable central star, RU CrA.
Spotting IC 5148 in Grus from my location was an iffy
proposition. Nonetheless, on a clear November night, I used
a magniﬁcation of 80× to ﬁnd HD 208677, an 8.4-magnitude
star 11′ southwest of the planetary. Switching to an eyepiece
at 160× and ﬁtted with a ﬁlter, I began searching northeast of
the star and encountered the round, grayish, 1′-wide nebula,
which winked in and out of averted vision. Subsequent observations on a night with better transparency with the same
setup showed the nebula directly, but I didn't see annularity
or the central star. When I removed the ﬁlter, I noted the
10.3-magnitude star CD-40 14582 about 2′ south-southwest

Concluding in Corona Australis and Grus
Heading to the Southern Crown, Fleming 3 is located
around 7′ south-southwest of 7.8-magnitude HD 163941. At
its coordinates, I saw a suspicious area at 106× alongside the
nearby 10.4-magnitude star HD 324715; adding a ﬁlter at
160× revealed the nebula. It was slightly larger than stellar,
bluish, and showed no evidence of annularity or a central
star. The image grew in size at 320×.
At the site of IC 1297 a magniﬁcation of 80× shows a pair
of 7.4- and 7.8-magnitude stars about 20′ apart on the eastern side forming the base of an acute triangle, with 9.1-magnitude HD 180115 at the western apex. This latter star lies
about 7′ southwest of the planetary. I glimpsed the tiny
32

JUNE 2 021 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

S SPARE TYRE NEBULA Another ethereal bubble, IC 5148 is at a
distance of around 3,500 light-years in Grus, the Crane. It's one of the
fastest expanding planetaries known.

NGC 6337: JOSEF PÖPSEL / BE ATE BEHLE / STEFA N BINNE WIES / CA PELL A
OBSERVATORY; IC 5148: ESO

since it's dim, inconspicuous, and located in an area devoid
of brighter stars and micro-asterisms. Nevertheless, I was
determined to spot it, and I saw it using averted vision at
160× with a ﬁlter. It was a grayish, somewhat circular mass
about 10″ in diameter and showed no evidence of its unusually bright 12.5-magnitude central star (HD 154072) even
without the ﬁlter.
My ﬁrst glimpse of 9.6-magnitude NGC 6302 was at 80×
aided by a ﬁlter. Its disk was elongated almost in an eastwest direction and was a brilliant bluish-white. The best
view of the nebula was at 160× always with the ﬁlter, which
enhanced its spattered appearance and hinted at its bipolar
nature. When I removed the ﬁlter, I could still see the ﬁlament extending from the western end of the nebula. Did I
mention that this nebula wins Best in Show?
NGC 6337 is in a rich but dim star ﬁeld, about 4′ northwest of 9.9-magnitude HD 323131 and about 9′ east-southeast of 9.1-magnitude HD 156849. This object was difﬁcult
to locate, but I ﬁnally managed to coax out a hazy gray disk
seen intermittently at 212× using a ﬁlter and averted vision. I
didn't see the annulus or the stars superposed thereon.

Sky & Telescope - June 2021

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