what was that ?

[bibbsy]

hi all,

another night of looking like a deranged periscope user but without the submarine still searching here there and everywhere for something interesting,whilst paying my usual visit to jupiter tonight i noticed with eyes only and not the scope, what i can only describe as a very small grey cloud just off to the left,i could see this out of the corner of my eye but it almost vanished when i looked directly at it,once i looked at this through the scope it showed up as a group of stars,not to many but just enough that i could not see them all in the eye piece,they were very bright too,have i at last found something lol.......someone please tell me i have

roll on wednesday when help is on its way,delivery of my goto mount.

[rory]

sounds like you got yourself a glob( globular cluster)

[rory]

by the way, dont know if you have done so already, but download stellarium. its a helpfull programe most of us have on our p.c's or laptops.

[bibbsy]

oooh did i thanks rory,i can add that to my massive found list,the moon,jupiter and now a cluster lol.

[bibbsy]

yes ive just done that thanks rory

[rory]

mate, im not much further down the list either, but on a clear night with that dob you have , youll be seeing plenty, remember to let your eyes get dark adapted.

[bibbsy]

ok will do,guess thats another thing im doing wrong,keep popping in the kithen to make a cuppa

[x6gas]

That's got me stumped!

There isn't much in the sky just to the east of Jupiter at the moment...

Aliens?!

Do you have Stellarium (free planetarium software)? I find it invaluable for determining what I am actually looking at and use it all the time even though I have a GOTO scope...

[bibbsy]

got me stumped too,mind you i would be stumped if something was supposed to be there lol.

[assasincz]

My guess is you saw the Pleiades (M45), an open cluster. Could this be?

[Stu]

Wouldn't be a globular cluster if it was over filling the field of view a s they are relatively small

M45 sounds quite likely, would be in roughly the right place

Stu

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[bibbsy]

hi assasincz,

just been looking on the planisphere and i think m45 is where i was looking,would it only be visible through the scope and not by the naked eye ?

[Stu]

Hi bibbsy. M45 should be easily a naked eye object but can be quite faint when low down or if your light pollution is bad. Best to view in your lowest power ep, looks good in binoculars too

Stu

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[bibbsy]

ok thanks stu,just seemed strange that i could see it better when i wasn't looking directly at it.....maybe i have bad eyes lol.

[assasincz]

When not looking directly at it, especially in a light polluted area or when it is very low in thy sky, M45 might seem fuzzy or cloud-ish. However, last night I was out at the airfield and with M45 very high in thy sky, I could distinctly see the seven brightest stars (Seven Sisters as thy are called) with a naked eye.

Viewing M45 though a telescope is a bit tough due to its angular size. Even with my 72° aFOV 17mm ERFLE eyepiece I use for widefield observing (53x with my focal ratio), I can not fit Pleiades in one field of view. I get dozens of very bright blue-ish stars, but at first glance, it does not seem like open cluster at all with that sort of magnification. So a field reducer or a longer focal-ratio EP is in order.

[bibbsy]

ok thank you assasincz,the m45 it is then,at last ive found something,build from here

[Stu]

I normally use a 31mm, 82 degree ep which gives a lovely view of it at x22 magnification. Plenty of ep options out there though

Stu

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[johntrob]

Look up the term, averted vision. Some interesting info on how to see, the hard to see, things out there.

[bibbsy]

thank you john

[brantuk]

Yup - sounds like you discovered averted vision, as well as a cluster - can be very useful on fainter objects especially galaxies

[bibbsy]

all by accident brantuk

[Neil McRae]

Here is a photo taken last week of Jupiter and Pleiades.

This is what you may have seen.

Neil

[bibbsy]

hi neil,yes thats it,that is what i did see thank you.

[rory]

so the pleiades looked like a small grey cloud in your scope , with averted vision?

are you sure ?

how low inthe sky would it have been then ?

[todd8137]

mate, im not much further down the list either, but on a clear night with that dob you have , youll be seeing plenty, remember to let your eyes get dark adapted.

beleave this or not when i go back in the house ,i put sunglass`s on but most of the time i fill the flask cos the kids and miss`s hate the door opening and close in all night