A frustrating evening!

[matt_man21]

I've just got in from the garden, my cold fingers still burning from carrying the scope and tripod indoors, Slowly regaining life whilst i type.

Seeing as it's beautifully clear tonight and the seeing isn't half bad either i decided to have a go at getting some faint fuzzies under my belt in an area of sky i'm not familiar with (anything north of 60+DEC) Lets just say that fork/Wedge mounted scopes are not exactly intuitive at those elevations... The first thing i tried as it's close to a bright star was M109 star hopping the the tiny 10-12mag stars centered where it should be in a 27mm Televue panoptic attached to my 4"F/5 refractor that piggybacks my LX-10 and Nothing... I checked my star charts over and over, i was in the right place i even destroyed my night vision when i went back inside to check in stellarium, I though i'd be clever and attach my CLS filter to the EP the background was very dark but still not even a vestige of what should be M109

I tried for Bodes galaxy and was met with exactly the same problem Even when i looked through the 8"SCT I could find nothing!!! all in all it's been a bit of a Frustrating evening... Does anyone else have nights that they cant find a darn thing?

Matt

[Rocksnipem]

Yea I had that night tonight. Even though I am a beginner, I also have frustrating nights just trying to find simple objects in the sky and just when I think I do... the clouds roll in.

Oh well, I guess if you could find exactly what you wanted every night, it would not be so much fun.

Better luck next time, hope you find what your looking for!

[Admiral Crispy]

Can't say about Bode's galaxy today, but in my 10" Dob I did see M109. It was just barely visible with averted vision and tapping the scope at about 60x. It is the toughest object I have found so far in my just less than a year's experience, since it appears as a slightly less-dark spot than the rest of the sky. At first I could see a faint star-like point, then the rest of the galaxy as an absurdly faint smudge. Last session i looked it was not visible, so I may have got lucky.

So have patience with it, it is there (barely), and when you do find Bode's, have a look and see the other Bode object, as they are awesome in the same field of view

[Ivor Scope]

Oh yes Mat, I have spent many a day contemplating giving my SW200 a good basil faulty style thrashing with a branch when I got in due to having wasted hours the night before in similar circumstances to you.

Then,

I go out this morning and decide to take the cover off my telescope whilst I'm literally walking past and against all the odds, despite the wind and the frost, my eye instantly lands on m101. I have spent hours looking for this and resorted to all sorts of filters, I have done nothing differently, but everything up there must have just been 'right'. It was feint, and was hardly a life stopping view, but it was there.

This 3 mins has given me a totally different outlook for my hobby, and now I know rather than spend hours, i will spend a few minutes looking in the right place and move on if there is no joy.

I am sure you will find it with ease the next time you look, probably when you aren't even trying

Hope this helps

Ivor

[assasincz]

There is no need to feel frustrated, to be honest. Seeing conditions that vary from night to night can make a whole lot of difference with fainter DSOs, as can the incosistency of light pollution from night to night. Moon shining can utterly destroy your ambition to observe DSOs.

If you haven't found anything, do not feel bad, just skip it and try it next time round. Maybe you will be lucky to get decent quality skies some other time.