deep sky observing.

[vegaandarctures]

Well tonight I managed to find m51 and m57 but the seeing was terrible! even Saturn was blurry at high power! Oh well better luck tomorrow night hopefully. P.s can any tell me how to find m13 because I've studied star charts for hours and still can not find that damn globular cluster!

[Nexus 6]

Hi, M13 can still be seen even with the relatively bright skies we have at the moment, I tend to find the keystone in Hercules and just drift down from Eta Herculium about a third the distance between it and Zeta Herculium when using some bins.

One thing that is really good about it is that being a globular you can use some high powers with the scope you are using to try and reveal more individual stars around it, its quite a sight!

here's a pic of the general region

[vegaandarctures]

Thank you very much

[Moonshane]

good directions above but some people have made the mistake of searching the head of Draco before which does not contain M13 (or the equally nice but smaller M92) of course but does have a similar shape to the keystone of Hercules, albeit a lot smaller.

Hercules is right overhead in the UK when dark and between Vega and Arcturus.

[Nexus 6]

Forgot to add its handy if you can make out the keystone to start with! For me here I am pretty lucky in having some fairly dark skies most of the time so can make it out on most nights

[Moonshane]

true indeed Alan

sometimes here I have problems seeing the keystone! Vega and Arcturus are always OK of course hence I know these guide stars well!

[Nexus 6]

true indeed Alan

sometimes here I have problems seeing the keystone! Vega and Arcturus are always OK of course hence I know these guide stars well!

well it would be a terrible site if you could'nt see those two major stars! I should also add I do use the bins on some of the more familiar objects to us all so its not always with the go to that I observe this lot

[Moonshane]

of course mate!

[vegaandarctures]

I'll try again tonight if clouds permit of course I'll also have to try m51, m57,m81 and m82

[Moonshane]

good luck!

unless you have very dark skies, and assuming you are using the 76mm newt, M51 would be very tricky I fear.

you should definitely see the others though

best wishes

Shane

[BinocularSky]

good directions above but some people have made the mistake of searching the head of Draco

Did that during a Messier Marathon, in the early hours when the blood-sugar was low...

[Moonshane]

I bet everyone has at some point - I included myself of course when referring to 'some people' - hence the warning