M15 spotted!

[Freedom2099]

This evening I was finally able to spot M15, it took me 10 minutes to spot it starting from Enif. It was like a fuzzy sphere... unfortunately my Celestron Astromaster 130mm wasn't able to resolve single stars... still amazing though!

Maximum magnification used was the one achieved with a 6mm eyepiece with a UHF filter to enhance the contrast with the background! Averted vision also helped a lot!

Stared at it for almost an hour... wasn't able to stop... too fascinated! 

[Ruud]

Congratulations! I love a good globular myself, even though I know only a few that show individual stars.

Thank you ever so much for reporting your discovery. Your enthusiasm is infectious.

[cutepetgroomer]

Last night I saw a globular cluster on my own for the first time. I had it perfectly centered, but what took away from its splendor was the light pollution. Still happy

Though

[Pete Presland]

cogratulations on your M15, i love globular clusters. there is also another cluster M92 in Hercules, not quite as stunning as M13 but worth a look.

[Ouroboros]

That area of the sky is well placed at the moment. Drop down from M15 towards the horizon into Aquarius and you get to M2 another globular. Neptune is not far away in Aquarius too.

[Freedom2099]

I tried to get to both M2 and Neptune yesterday but failed in finding a good star-hopping path

[Freedom2099]

I did it! Spotted also M2 this evening! Great view! Smaller than M15 but brighter! My UHC filter did a great job on this cluster enhancing the contrast with the background!

Unfortunately I failed again in finding Neptune! Is beyond my reach! Not close enough to anything visible in the sky to star-hop from there... neither I know what to expect from it to try to look around and hope to find it. But I won't give up!

[Ouroboros]

Neptune is tricky. I have found it with bins by star hopping. I used GoTo with the telescope. I still had to compare the view with SkySafari though just to make sure which blob was the planet.

[cutepetgroomer]

Where I do most stargazing, the lp allows for easy recognition of the planets. And constellations.

[Special K]

I'm glad you also thought M2 was brighter than M15, I thought it was just my eyes! However at 6.5 magnitude, M2 is a titch dimmer than 6.4 M15. Must be the structure of M2 which makes it

seem brighter and easier to view, though smaller as you say.

Good luck with Neptune. It can take some patience a maybe more than one attempt. Bins will help if you are star hopping. If you can get to sigma Aquarius, then you are practically on it. Have a look at the recent posts in Planets for some guidance.

[Freedom2099]

When I checked the stats of M2 I was surprised too that it looked brighter then M15... my guess is because  is denser than M15!

[swamp thing]

I'm glad you also thought M2 was brighter than M15, I thought it was just my eyes! However at 6.5 magnitude, M2 is a titch dimmer than 6.4 M15. Must be the structure of M2 which makes it

seem brighter and easier to view, though smaller as you say.

Good luck with Neptune. It can take some patience a maybe more than one attempt. Bins will help if you are star hopping. If you can get to sigma Aquarius, then you are practically on it. Have a look at the recent posts in Planets for some guidance.

M15 is densely concentrated and needs high magnification to resolve it properly. This particular object responds very well to aperture. The bigger your scope the more you start to rate M15. 

To the OP your UHC filter is not really gonna help at all on globular clusters. Nebula filters are exactly what they say, for nebula only. Globular clusters are obviously made of stars, and stars emit light right across the spectrum much as a streetlight does therefore dim the streetlight glare dims the starlight too.

[Walshie79]

I've often asked myself the question of which is brighter, M2 or M15? With 25x70 binoculars, the impression I get is that in a standard dark clear sky M2 is the brighter of the pair. However I find M15 stands up better to moonlight or severe light pollution so that if the moon is more than half it appears more conspicuous than M2, possibly because it is more concentrated.

M15 is by far and away the easier of the two to locate, although when I first saw it I was surprised it was so far from Enif. The way I find M2 is to trace out the pentagon shape with Enif and theta Peg at the top, Alpha Equulei to the right and alpha and beta Aqr below. This looks very like a smaller, fainter Auriga to me. M2 is in pretty much the same place M38 is in the real Auriga: somewhat below the centre and left of a line from Elnath/beta Aqr to the star above right (Iota Aurigae/Alpha Equulei). If you have a dark enough sky, the rest of Equuleus even does a pretty good impression of the kids!