Observations last night from a newbie

[pduk]

I've not had my skyliner 200p very long and last night was my first proper night out in good conditions.

I started off with Jupiter. It was trivial to find (big bright thing in the sky) and showed as a tiny ball using the wide angle eyepiece. Once I switched to high magnification, I was amazed to see it clearly - bands and all but no great red spot. Initially I could see one moon. Then another popped around the side of the planet as I was watching! And another was busy traversing the face of the planet, I hadn't noticed it before.

I then went on to the pleiades (seven sisters) which showed a huge number of stars in one small area. Again it was easy to find (looks like a miniature plough). After that I went over to Orion and spent some time looking at and around the belt, and at Rigel (the brightest star in Orion) then got ambitious and went for the Orion Nebula. Found what I thought was probably it, a large area of cloudy gas containing a few stars and I sketched it so I could look it up later and confirm it. Looks like it was indeed the nebula having looked it up this morning.

My final target for the evening was the Andromeda Galaxy. This was to be found by using three stars in Cassiopeia as a pointer. Much frustration followed as I'd expected this to be an easy one, but just could not found it. The bright orange street lamp behind me (that the council will apparently shield for me soonish) was stopping my night vision from working properly; some of the guide stars would only seem to pop in if I used peripheral vision. I used a skymap app on my phone to confirm where it should be. I was just on the point of giving up when a cloudy mass appeared in my eyepiece, not the large galaxy-like object I had been expecting. It appears that this was the centre of the galaxy and conditions (light pollution, air quality) may have been preventing me from seeing the dimmer outer bits. I shall return to this another night. Everything had started to frost up at this point (both me and the scope!).

Would like to hear how others got on, particularly regarding Andromeda

Paul.

[sunshine185]

Same scope as you, and the same problems finding Andromeda, in the end I just gave up. From where I am, Andromeda is overhead, but more N/ NNW, I found it when it was more east facing.lp makes a huge difference to me as the pennine hills are east of me, and west is Manchester and north is Oldham town centre.

[twotter]

Glad to hear you had a good night, which is great

Over the last two nights I've concentrated on M42 (Friday) and Jupiter (Saturday). M42 was a great sight as I used my OIII filter on it for the first time, which really made the nebula stand out making it almost 3D. If that wasn't enough to make Friday a great night's observing I was also able to see 6 stars in the Trapezium, first time I've been able to manage that

Jupiter last night was good too. Lots of detail on the planet, though blurring in and out. Good bands and two moons to start with. Then a third popped out from the planet Moved on to check out a few DSOs, including M35 for the first time, checked out Castor as a double, then finished with Pleiades.

Back inside for a hot chocolate and a chat with Mrs Twotter about the merits of a CPC800

As for Andromeda, it is a nice sight but I need to use my lowest mag eyepiece and it still doesn't quite fit in the view. Also it's not well placed for me at present, because by the time I get out to observe Andromeda is lost in the light pollution from Peterborough.

[John]

Sounds like a good night overall so well done !

M31, The Andromeda Galaxy is always a bit of an observing enigma. The core of the galaxy is invariably what we see - a sort of condensed fuzzy oval of light. Under dark skies using the averted vision technique it is possible to trace the outer parts of the galaxy further out - it's over 3 degrees across in total, 6x the diameter of the full moon. I have scopes up to 10" in aperture but to be honest I find the best views of M31 come either with my 15x70 binoculars or with my 102mm refractor with an ultra-wide Nagler eyepiece which provides a view almost 4 degrees across.

M31's neighbouring gaxies M32 and M110 can be seen in the same field of view when you have a nice wide angle to play with.

[Chris H]

I use my 10x50 binoculars for M31 or my refractor with 28mm ep to give me the widest possible field of view. The Andromeda galaxy is somewhere near 4 degrees in size so it's big and is best seen from a good dark location and don't spoil your night vision looking at a lap top or iPhone.

[stevetynant]

Hi all - looks like we all have the same scope-so glad to hear such positive reports and was gutted that here in S Wales everything clouded over last night and I was not able to use mine for the first time. -

Paul- were you using the standard EPs that came with the scope or have you upgraded them already?

Mr Twotter - I'm assuming the RDF after your scope name is red dot finder - as this was't standard kit with the scope when you bought it would you recommend it over the standard spotting scope or should I be looking for either a telrad or a 90% spotting scope (even aligning it gave me bad back yesterday).

cheers all

Steve

[John]

The Telrad and Rigel Quikfinder are types of RDF - they project concentric circles rather than a dot though. These "zero magnification" finders do make pointing the scope at a precise place in the sky very easy in my view. You then use a low power eyepiece in the scope to pick up the object you are searching for. Optical finders are helpful in addition sometimes but I find the RDF type does the job around 80% of the time for me.

[stevetynant]

thanks John - I think I'm starting to develop a new shopping list already which is bad news as the budget has already been blown for this year

[pduk]

Paul- were you using the standard EPs that came with the scope or have you upgraded them already?

I already got some new ones, the 12, 16, and 19mm flat fields from SysTheLimit (Alan is local and we happen to both shoot at the same archery club! He thought they might be good for a Dob user. Have to say the build quality and DoF is so much better than the supplied ones). Jupiter was superb through the 12mm with the TAL barlow. I'm pondering getting 5mm BST and/or 8mm... and something nice and wide at the top end, though the supplied 25mm is OK for now.

I got a Rigel and a right angle finder when I bought the scope and the Rigel is brilliant, it makes the initial alignment so quick.

Glad to hear everyone's views about Andromeda. I'll have another go soon. I do have the cheapo Bresser 10x50 bins as well, so next time I may start with those first.

[John]

thanks John - I think I'm starting to develop a new shopping list already which is bad news as the budget has already been blown for this year

I know what you mean - buying the scope is the cheap bit but we don't mention that too much when giving advice in case people run away form the hobby

[Tinker1947]

I like my Telrad, some people hate them, get some maps and Stellarium and finding stuff gets a bit easier but DSO's don't give up easy some still take up to a hour of scanning back and forth and i use a camera for the dimmer type 30 second exposure not only shows them but a shed load of stars that don't show in the EP...Google "Telrad Maps"...

http://www.atmob.org/library/member/skymaps_jsmall.html

[Catweazel]

Hi Paul, Congratulations, it souds like you had a rewarding first night with your new scope.

Great minds think alike I also followed your itinerary with my bins, Jupiter (just a bright light as usual but with 2 moons visible), the pliades and Orion nebula (from what I saw, your description sounds right). I didn't attempt the Andromeda galaxy, but am comforted by John's comment about the 15x70 bins, as that's all I have at the moment, so will give it a try next time. Hopefully my new scope will arrive this week, then I really will have to put some work in to justify the expense to the mrs

CW