help with locating DSO

[cal1985]

HI All, im in desperate need of help! i have been using stellarium for quite some time, using 10x50 bino's to get used to the night sky and learning the stars, now i have a telescope and have been hooked since i got it back at christmas. i have managed to have jupiter when it was up, saturn now, and orion nebula when that was visable. but now im stuck! i have tried looking for different galaxy's through the night and cant seem to find any, im finding now that its frustrating me, because i can find these easy by star hoping on stellarium but i go outside, know where to look and just cant get the results.

for example i tried to find the leo trio , m66, m65 and NGC3628 , found the hip of the lion leo then moved south around 2deg and then east just under 1deg and nothing! not even anything close to a fuzzy patch.

same as M100 no joy there, or M3 which i thought was quite easy to locate.

Please can i have help?

[NGC 1502]

Maybe joining a club could be a good move ? They are usually very

helpful with observing advice. Here is a list of astronomy clubs in Kent -

Clubs

Regards, Ed.

[rocketandroll]

The key is using a good quality wide field of view eyepiece to find the object, then switch to a higher magnification.

twenty-something mm or bigger to start with.

M3 and other bright globulars should be fairly easy to find with the right eyepiece... brighter galaxies should also be do-able, the Leo trio, M81/82 and M51 certainly should be visible with a vaguely dark site and a 130mm reflector.

It did take me a good few attempts to find M51 though... worth it when you see it though! :-)

Ben

[cal1985]

i think i will try the astro club at the weekend (weather permitting)!! in regards to the eyepiece i have 2 and a barlow, both came with the telescope when bought 25, and a 10 both SW standard (from what i have heard not a great set but will do)! the barlow is also the SW standard. should i be able to see the leo triplet with this set up even though the scope does not have a parabolic mirror its the spereacal one?

[cal1985]

ngc1502, thank you for that link thats much appreciated

[NGC 1502]

should i be able to see the leo triplet with this set up

From a dark site you should see the Leo Triplet with your

SW 130. But from a light polluted town, it will be much

tougher. M65 & M66 are brighter than the NGC galaxy,

so you may get those.

How about some double stars, now that the light evenings

are here ? It doesn't have to be fully dark and they show

up well thru light pollution. Not forgetting the Moon & Saturn

of course

Best regards, Ed.

[JamesM]

The best thing to help improve your observing is to go to a dark site as those faint galaxies will show up a lot better. You don't say quite how you find your objects apart from mentioning Stellarium. Is your finder aligned with your scope. When looking through a scope, there are always so many more stars that you can reference from and scale (from screen to sky) is very difficult to judge but will come with time and more experience. A right angled finder might help, at least the image is not inverted though still back to front. I use this as well as a Telrad, which I find very intuitive to use but requires a darkish sky to know where to point the scope. Lastly there are many programs on the internet that allow you print off detailed maps that are specific to a particular part of the sky you wish to visit, having that in your hand at the eyepiece also makes things easier than going over to a screen.

Hope that helps,

James

[cal1985]

with the Mcatalogue would i know what it is when i see it through my gear?

[cal1985]

james thank you, i have spent alot of time learning how to polor align and getting the finderscope which is a red dot finder scope with no mag. aligned with the scope . im happy with the alignment and can have my camera attached and with the motor will stay with the stars without trails for around 10mins. i use stellarium as a main point of view however i also subscribe to Sky at night and with th e deep sky tours and maps i take these out with me, but still cant get what im looking for. i fear im doing something wrong or what im expecting to see is not what i should be looking for ! i have not much light pollution and very dark back garden away from street lights,. the collimation on the scope is good and been looked over by a astonamy shop. but still cant get the results

[legoalan]

Maybe try looking at M53, since thats the first DSO that I intentionally found (my first DSO, M35, was found by complete fluke XD) It's at the end of the constellation coma berenicles and to locate it just loacte the diadem star and looking around the region to the left. I hope that by finding this DSO, you will be be more motivated to search for others. Keep at it and good luck =]

[cal1985]

ok thats my goal and task, im gonna try for M53 and not stop till i have.! there are so many people sayng that i can find it with the equipment just have to know where to look. so ill study the maps and get this one in the view. thanks all for the time you have taken to help me im very grateful to you all

[John]

.... but still cant get what im looking for. i fear im doing something wrong or what im expecting to see is not what i should be looking for !.....

I think you have put your finger on the problem, or challenge, here. It's really difficult to perceive what a particular object will actually look like when you have it in the eyepiece, no matter how many photos / drawing / descriptions you look at beforehand.

Some DSO's are expansive, some very small, some concentrated, some very diffuse. Each has it's own characteristics (which makes them interesting of course) but also sometimes makes it a challenge to work out if there is anything actually in the field of view at all !.

Some of the well known ones are surprisingly hard to actually see whereas some more obscure ones jump out at you and you think "well why isn't this a more talked about object :icon_scratch:".

The good thing is, once you have found something once, it's much, much easier tracking it down again ..... well usually

Personally my favourite galaxies are M81 and M82 because they were the 1st I ever saw and that was with an old 60mm Tasco refractor. Also they are always well above the horizon "murk", relatively bright and concentrated, for galaxies, and you get a "2 for the price of 1" deal in a low power eyepiece

A lovely nebula to look out for (it's quite big as well) is M27 which is the Dumbell Nebula in Vulpecula - it's just "below" Lyra and to the "right" of the "head end" of Cygnus. It's a great object in my 4" scope so will be even better with your scope

[klomoli]

Hi cal1985

I'm a newbie too, I have a SW 200/1000 so a little bigger but it took me ages to find the leo triplets, it is just not that easy! (as a newbie) when you look at the sky the constellations are fairly easy to spot but once you look into the finder you see so many other stars that totally confuses your bearings let alone the fact that everything moves the wrong way round or should I say been upside down.

And be sure not to missed them because we are really talking about tinny smuges here, at least with our eyepieces (I have the same as you do, 10 & 25). So what I do is that I might take a break from it, but never give up till I find them, I make it a personnal mission, and once you have found them, although we are not looking at something that amazing to look at but so marvelous with what they represent!

Good luck and keep at it!

[Casus belli]

Faint fuzzies need as dark a sky as possible. In my back yard I can see 7 in total. In two hours from a dark sky site even with a badly collminated scope I saw 150.

M81 and M82 are high in the sky just now and are bright. Have a go at them.

[BAZ Senior]

Don't forget to let your scope cool down to ambient temperature, this will really make faint objects difficult to see if it still has air movement in the tube. Also you need to get your eyes dark adapted, and takes about twenty mins to half an hour, and any trace of white light blows it.

Good hunting.

[Jack123456]

Hi

Do you take anything out with you as a reference? a book? a star map?

You can take inverted screenshot in stellarium (black stars on a white background) which you could print out and take outside with you. so if you see a cirtain patten of stars (like a right-angled triangle) in the EP, you can then look back at the print out to see if you haven't gone far enough, too far, wrong direction etc.

[klomoli]

Hi

Do you take anything out with you as a reference? a book? a star map?

You can take inverted screenshot in stellarium (black stars on a white background) which you could print out and take outside with you. so if you see a cirtain patten of stars (like a right-angled triangle) in the EP, you can then look back at the print out to see if you haven't gone far enough, too far, wrong direction etc.

Hello again,

I use an Iphone app which is called Star walk, only £1.79, you can switch the app to a red light colour and where ever you look at the sky with the phone up in the air, it will show you what you can see and where, of course after its up to you to find it but at least you get a good idea!

[banner001]

cant stress how useful the book 'turn left at orion' is for small telescope users, such as myself.

m65 and m66 are really faint, you probably looked right at them and didnt know it, buy the book, see what your finderscope view showes you and proceed from there...i dont have a finderscope, i go from a red laser dot to an aFOV or 1degre and i can find them, plus i dont use my eq mount as an eq, i alt/az it, you should have no problems!

[cal1985]

this has all been so educational for me, thanks all of you. going from the advice, i am going to get the book Turn left at Orion. i have heard so much about this and people praise this like the stargazers bible! so i think this is a must in my inventory!! m81 + m82 is going to be my goal as well as taking a few maps out with me. yet again thank you for all the advice given, (you can research all you like, but having first hand experianced advice given to you is worth its weight in gold ) thank you all

[cal1985]

ok so i did what every1 has said and...... i found it ! m81 + m82 shockingly smaller than i was expecting but astounding none the less. yet again thank you all for making this possible .

[banner001]

no probs!

[Rover]

Although I haven't used one, I hear that a telrad and the telrad maps can help emmensly. I think both the Sky at Night and Astronomy now publish maps for telrad finding monthly. Might be worth looking into more though.

I haven't invested in one yet but was giving it serious thought for the winter.