Caroline's Rose experience

[Anonymous]

Hi there--

I am a noob and this is my first post.

I read "caroline's rose" described as deserving of inclusion in the Messier list, and so went on the hunt with a 10" dob last night under marginal seeing conditions (intermittent fog, high humidity).

I completed several different star hop routes to it, to convince myself that the dim object was the correct patch of space. After a long time with averted vision I could just convince myself that I saw two thin, dim lanes of stars that might be petals.

Is this a standard experience, or am I goofing up here? The book says mag ~5.5 or so for this object (I think).

Many thanks for your time and expertise.

The noob

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

It can be tricky in the rich star field. I got it at low magnification in my C8, but it was actually a bit easier in the 15x70 bins. Like some other clusters in the band of the Milky Way, using big binoculars is sometimes better.