Gyulbudaghian's Nebula around the young star PV Cephei is an FU-Ori star, short Fuor, which have extreme outbursts of up to 6 mag. While Gyulbudhagian's Nebula was an easy target even for smaller scopes ten years ago, it became considerably more difficult later.

_PV_Cep.jpg

Here is a sample of DSS images showing the variability of the nebula
PV_Cep_vari.jpg

I have monitored PV Cep and the nebula (or better its visual non-existence :-) ) over the past five years. My notes were as follows (with 22"):

09/2008: nothing visible, neither star nor nebula
07/2010: dito
08/2010: star was suspected several times, doubtful
10/2010: indirectly, a small extended object was suspected, extremely difficult
10/2011: star very difficult, but with certainty. No nebula
08/2012: nothing.

Last week, an image was posted on Cloudy Nights, on which the nebula appeared to have brightened.

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthrea...Number/5996754
Note that the image is mirrored.

So I tried it Thursday night under alpine skies in the Austrian Alps. And surprise, the nebula was immediately visible without even locating its precise position. It appeared as an easy direct vision object, larger than expected (a bit less than 1') and fan-shaped (only one lobe is visible of this bipolar nebula, the other is obscured by the dust envelope around the star). The fan was of even surface brightness and PV Cephei could not be resolved at the tip of the fan.

Here is a finder chart of this Young Stellar Object
http://www.reinervogel.net/pdf/PV_Cephei.pdf

More about this type of objects and Young Stellar Objects in general is on my website
http://www.reinervogel.net/YSO/YSO_e.html