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Identifying item/position


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Hi There,

I am trying to correlate what I see against what's in Stellarium.

What do you do if you are trying to work out the position of something in relation to it's nearest item when there isn't any close items to get a fix on what it might (or might not be)?

Do you have specialist tools or something?

Best

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Depends, if you take a picture you can plate solve it and find exactly what's there.

If this is visual then it is a bit harder.

You have to star hop to something recognisable.

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Use surrounding brighter reference points/strs and then sit down and work out the most probable.

On stellarium it is better to reduce the number of stars that it displays by setting the limiting magnitude suitably.

Helps to have a fair idea of the constellations, and even better if you can picture how to get from one to another using pointers.

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It's not clear from your post what scale you are on. Naked eye, whole sky (constellation) or through an eyepiece (DSO's). I'll answer for the former.

It was a slow process for me which started with me "independently discovering" Orion's Belt :)

I had seen the stars many times and when looking through a star atlas one time (home computers weren't available then) I saw this feature and recognised it. So that was my first "Guidepost". From that I found Beetlejuice and Rigel. Each jump out from the belt opened new horizons. Aldeberan was confirmed by the Hyades and Pleiades. Sirius? How had I ever missed it?

Once you begin to appreciate the scale or size of the constellations it becomes much easier.

Then I found The Plough and from that Polaris and Arcturus along with their respective constellations.

As the seasons advance new constellations come into view but it takes a good few seasons to learn even the brighter stuff. It's a great pleasure to find a new constellation.

I always remember the constellations as patterns connected by the usual constellation lines. Finding fainter objects can often be done by visualising their position within the body of the constellation.

A good example is M13, the great globular cluster in Hercules. I know it sits almost on the line between the two stars that form the right side of the central square offset towards the upper star.

I know that from looking at the map in my minds eye. I can't name any stars in Hercules but I can go straight to M13 without reference a star atlas

Ditto: M1 in Taurus. M57 in Lyra. Even M81/M82 in Ursa Major are easy to find (with scope or bins!) by using gamma and alpha UMA as "pointers". I had to look up those star designations but already knew exactly where to find M82 and M82 :)

And on it goes! 

Enjoy :)

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Thanks for the responses.

"Depends, if you take a picture you can plate solve it and find exactly what's there.

If this is visual then it is a bit harder.

You have to star hop to something recognisable
."

Do you need a telescope with photographic capability to take the picture for plate solving?

I'm pretty sure that it's a satellite. It doesn't have scintillation at all really, and it seems much closer to earth and is much brighter than average stars (in apparent terms).

Also the distance it was from the moon is much greater tonight than last night.

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1) get the closest known star in the crosshairs of a reticle eyepiece.

Then set your RA and Dec setting circles to that star's figures.

Then move to your desired object's RA and Dec.


OR


2) Find a know star on the same RA or DEc as your desired object, and then follow the steps above - removes one possible source of error.


OR


3) Get a Telrad finder and use Telrad charts to starhop.


Michael
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Ah that makes it easy, your looking at Jupiter :D

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How can you be sure? Can you tell me a little more about the plate solving?

1) get the closest known star in the crosshairs of a reticle eyepiece.
Then set your RA and Dec setting circles to that star's figures.
Then move to your desired object's RA and Dec.
OR
2) Find a know star on the same RA or DEc as your desired object, and then follow the steps above - removes one possible source of error.
OR
3) Get a Telrad finder and use Telrad charts to starhop.
Michael

Thanks,

I have a basic telescope but I would need to check if it was compatible with a reticle eyepiece or a telrad finder. Are those add-ons which are made specifically to go with manufacturers own products or are they fairly universal? Are there any go to sites for best value?

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How can you be sure? Can you tell me a little more about the plate solving?

Your description of what you were looking at was very good.

Somehing very bright without scintillation - this has to be an object in our solar system.

Then you mentioned it got further away from the moon the next day - having been looking at Jupiter myself I know it was very close to the moon and the next day a lot further away as the moons orbit moves it across the sky each day.

Plate solving is when you take an photograph of the stars and use a computer to calculate what is in it.

There is a website set up to do this. www.astrometry.net

Plate solving would only have been half of the puzzle in this case mind, it doesn't show objects inside of our solar system so you would have to compare the solved image to something that does like the free Stellarium software.

Most telescopes are capable of holding a reflex sight like a Telrad or a Rigel Quickfinder, if you have a very small scope the latter may be more appropriate as the Telrads are quite big. It comes with a mount that sticks to the scope.

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Another method of identifying what you see through the eyepiece, if you don't have an astro camera, is to sketch (as accurately as possible) the stars you can see.  Make the brighter ones a little larger.  Make a note of time and date and constellation, or, if you're not certain of that, the direction and approximate angle above the horizon.  Then set the telescope plug-in in Stellarium to show the field of view  of your scope and have a  look around. 

I found this helped me when I was searching for deep sky objects as well as finding my way around.

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