McTestkil

I found it ! Hello, and thank you all for the responses ! for those who care: So, took a week break because of full moon etc. Today was optimal moon only came out at around 01:30, so had lots of time to stargaze. So after realising you have to remove the dust cap in front of the barel entirely..., no i'm joking ^^ So, this time I almost immediatly saw the grey spot again, witouth losing it after seconds. Yeah what I saw last time was def that. @Waddensky was right about the once you know what to expect, it's easy now. I tried different zoom levels (barlow didn't work tho) trying to see some more detail than a grey eliptic object. (Yes I'm well aware how to use averted vision.) I also got a better sense on field of view sizes and directions (up is down, left is right... and in the telescope it's turned 90 degrees for extra confussion) Next I went for M13, found it quickly (minus the part where you have to rotate the damn tube and find the correct stars) It looked similar to the nebula, a grey spot, way bigger and brighter (more white'ish) It was also more round. I have to say i'm a bit disappointed. No I wasn't expecting high tech satelite imagery or models. But, just a bit more than what i saw. I didn't see any structure except it being eliptic ishhh, sad about these things is that, witouth knowing beforehand what you are looking at, you don't know what it is. Same for M13, Going from this image I should have seen some dots, (yes I tried changing focus for both objects, the best focus was the same focus used on the stars.) It looked like this, with it being brighter in the center, I was looking at the correct thing. Yet i didn't see any detail in this neither. No dots, stars just shades of grey.

Hi, I've been having some beginner troubles. My telescope is a skywatcher 130/900 with the EQ2 mount. I'm new to stargazing, and have had some trouble over the past weeks getting anything except a planet. (got saturn mars and jupiter so far.) I've been trying to see the ring nebula for a while, tried like 5 nights already, each time I fail. Today i've starhopped (for the first time, succesfully) for about 2 hours between Sheliak and Sulafat. (I had some trouble finding the correct stars in my telescope and moving between them witouth finderscope, was no problem this time). Yet, I still didn't find it, I tried several lenses, first wide angle, then my best 7.5 mm possl lens, nothing... After hours I did see a very faint grey spot +- where it should be that couldn't be focused. Not sure if that was it or if it was something else or if my brain was making me see things to get me to stop. Maybe the light conditions weren't good enough today? (It was almost full moon) I did see way less stars than usual, but then again i'm not sure on how bright and how excatly it should look like, all google images of telescope pics show it having some color and not just being a blur. Second thing i'm wondering, I think i'm aligning the telescope to polaris incorrectly, I have to adjust with the second knob way way to often. Any tips on that? Maybe i'm not being precise enough setting the telescope into "standard position" for DEC and RA. I've watched couple of guides and videos on it, don't see how i'm wrong, I'm never sure on how precisely i've resetted the position tho. (And yes I'm aligning using ALT AZ) For a second I was also thinking the RA should not move polaris out of center, but that mechanically doesn't make sense. (It draws a circle, top being polaris when in standard position.) Thanks for the advice/help !

I'll try again tonight, I was able to see the constelation and the two stars you are talking about. Problem was getting them into my viewscope, I was never sure which ones i was looking at since, way to many stars. As for setting the AR, I just do it on polaris while setting it up. (I use the app star walk 2 (paid) as my "star chart" it also gives all the needed data like dec, AR...). Even when tought I had the correct one since it's equatorial you can't just turn perfectly right to find the other star. Any fix for the screw turning on itself? (no grip)

Hi, I just got my first own telescope a skywatcher 130/900 (been using other people's telescopes untill now.) Today i tried seeing something new untill now it has been jupiter/saturn. like the ring nebula. I couldn't eyeball it so I was trying to figure out the dials. Day 2 of stargazing : the little screw next to the R I A turns on itself, (while I was trying to figure out why the entire dial turns with the pointer, which is how I got on this forum.) how big of a problem is this? Is there any trick i could do (like coating the inside with something to get the grip back?) Thank you for the responses!