Deep sky viewing help!

[koko.pelli]

Hi everyone,

I have been lent a telescope by a friend, and have had a look at Saturn, Jupiter and the moon, absolutely amazing but the deep sky is beckoning!

I was just wondering if you could help me with some advice on what to look for?

The telescope is an 8 inch Meade (pretty sure it is a schmidt-cassegrain - short/deep blue scope).

Would Andromeda and the Orion Nebula be within reach? Would there be any other interesting objects I could hope to see?

Also does anyone here know of good viewing locations in West Sussex? Have heard on the Sky at Night that Selsey is good, and that is only 30 minutes away.

Thank you in advance.

Simon

[Black Knight]

Well, quite a notable bunch of astronomers have taken up residence in Selsey, so I guess it ain't bad

[JamesM]

If the loan is for a fair bit of time then it might be worth getting hold of "Turn Left at Orion" as that will suggest a lot of great objects that are straight forward to find and observe. You don't say if your scope is GOTO capable so I have no idea if you can "dial" objects in or you are looking for them manually hence me recommending some reading material. One other useful tool which you can use is to download in the shorter term would be "Stellarium" which is piece of free planetarium software that is both easy and great to use and will give an idea of what is up there for you to find. You will need to input your own "home" position to link the sky shown with the real one outside but the rest of it is very simple to work out.

James

[umadog]

For reference, all of the Messier objects will easily be within reach of your scope.

Ones that are both fairly easy to find and most impressive are: M42, M31, M13, M27, M57, M8, M17.

[xyz]

download (it's free) a copy of Stellarium. Major help in locating targets and it's easy to set up and use.

[cs1cjc]

I would add M81 and M82 to the list of objects to look at, though low in the north at present.

[koko.pelli]

Thanks so much everyone, that will keep me busy for a while. I've got an app on my phone called Starmap Pro which will be good to target the objects you have listed. If that doesn't help I will get stellarium.

The telescope doesn't have goto.. has a manual equatorial mount, to view the planets I have just been manually moving it in to place, I assume that will be harder with deep sky.

Would deep sky objects slew out of the field of view as quickly as the planets do?

I'd need a very dark sky to view these objects wouldn't I?

Thanks again everyone.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have a Celestron C8, and you can see from my sig that many objects are within reach of such an instrument. Capture galaxy number 153 recently. Most of my observing is from a suburban garden, and I find much more DSOs are within range than i had ever expected. The best ones are already listed above.

[Capricorn]

That scope will show every Messier object there is, when they wander into view.

Orion can be seen in 8x42 binoculars, an 8" SCT will have no problems at all.

If you want a "cheap" list of Messiers then enter "messier list" in to google and click on the wikipedia entry. One nice list of all Messiers. Small point the pictures are in colour, you will see grey or white but not colour.

Besides the Messiers it will show others that Messier could not see.

[Astro Imp]

Would deep sky objects slew out of the field of view as quickly as the planets do?

When viewing DSOs you will usually be using a lower magnification than for planets so they will move across the FOV much slower.

[brantuk]

The Orion Nebula (M42) and Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and Pliades (M45) are good starters as they are all naked eye objects and you'll have no trouble pointing the scope at them.

One tip though - get the mount polar aligned - it will make pointing and tracking so much easier. For this you'll need to know how to locate the pole star using the Plough pointer stars and Cassiopiea. Use Stellarium for that. Even if you can just point the mount magnetic north and set the altitude scale to your lattitude on Earth will make a huge difference to finding stuff. You'll only have to track in one plane (RA).

Hope that helps

[koko.pelli]

Thanks everyone. Had a look for the Andromeda Galaxy last night. Saw it in Binoculars, and took so long for the telescope to find it, when we did it was very blurry, I think it was quite hazy last night. Tried to switch to a larger magnification eyepiece but then we lost it.

Brantuk I think I will have a go at polar aligning. Polaris is nice and easy to find so will align with this. The mount is an equatorial mount (I think that is the word) is that what I need? Do you know of a website which explains in detail how I can polar align?

Thanks again for all your help everyone

(When is the best time of year to view the Orion Nebula?)

[brantuk]

Orion can be seen now in the early hours - couple of weeks ago it was rising a 4am so in a few more it will be up at midnight. By December it ought to be in the evening sky in plain view. Andromeda will be better on a clearer night - but will allways appear as a faint smudge - best viewed from a really dark site.

Try this video - explains PA pretty well

(there's plenty more there too)

[koko.pelli]

Fantastic, thank you

[Vega]

Hi

Just thought I'd add some pointers too

When finding objects, always use your lowest power eyeypeice first (highest number in mm). Then if there is the need to crank the magnification up .. centre the object as best you can then put the lower number eyepiece in.

To be honest, objects like the Andromeda nebula, Plaiades may not even fit in your field of view of an 8" Meade fully even at low magnification. So your unlikely at this stage to need to crank up the magnification on these objects.

Another object I would definately add to the list is the double star Albireo. Do a search on stellarium.. looks like a single star to the naked eye at the bottom of the kite shaped constellation 'Cygnus'. Its quite easy to find and very pleasing to the eye.

Matt

[bird_2112]

Hi all,

I bought the book "Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders: From Novice to Master Observer". There's a lot more in it than "Turn left at Orion" and for £20 posted on Amazon I think its worth the money. Lists and groups objects by constellation and then by visibilty/ease of viewing so plenty to work through.

G.