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200 auto flex dob


tomlines

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advice please

ive been using a go to 130 alt as for a while and just got my 200 flex

basically im after advice as to what i should be able to see?

my area is horrible for light pollution

i ha first light last night and seen the orion nebula, double cluster. and all available planets. but ima bit of a novice and after that struggle for things to look at

any advice on what best deep space objects i can see with this scope please?

regards

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ive seen andromeda galaxy through my 130. should it be alot clearer in my 200?

i was too late to see it last night

and the whirlpool and pin wheel galaxy. should they show in my scope and if so should i just expect a haze? aswell as m81 and m82??

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What DSOs you can see depends first and foremost on the darkness of the sky, secondly on aperture. You say you have horrible light pollution and have been using a 130. With the 200 you'll be able to see everything you saw with the 130. How much more you see depends on the light pollution.

All the objects you mention are visible with binoculars at a dark site. At a light polluted one they might be impossible with any aperture (after all, you wouldn't expect to see them in daytime, no matter what scope you use).

For DSOs, concentrate on clusters (open or globular), also emission nebulae (eg M42, M57, Eskimo, which you can view with a filter). If you can see galaxies and reflection nebulae at all then consider it a bonus. People manage the core of M31 from London so that gives an idea of what's possible. Large, low surface brightness objects such as M33 or M101 suffer particularly badly in light-polluted sites; small, high-surface brightness objects (like M57) fare much better.

Try working through the Messier list and see what you can manage. Or try the Urban Deep Sky list:

Urban Program - Deep Sky Objects List | The Astronomical League

An 8" scope is very easy to transport so you might also want to consider finding a darker site.

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very valid points. some of it is quite common sense i suppose

im going to see how easy it all fits in my car tonight and if its simple ill definately be venturing to a darker site

my brother uses the 130 now so its nice to have a companion threw it all

ill definately look at your above suggestions

many thanks

ps, if this was my view of orion last night would you consider my skies to be poluted highly or not?)

this was a fifteen second exposure with a point and shoot just to see what was possible

thankstomlines-albums-200-dob-first-light-picture15940-orion-nebula.jpeg

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I couldn't say from a photo what your sky quality is like, but try looking at the stars of Ursa Minor (the Little Bear). If you can't see all of them with the naked eye then you're badly light polluted. For me, a dark site is one where I can see the Milky Way clearly with the naked eye; anything else is compromised to some extent. Even at a badly light polluted site it's possible to see some of the brighter galaxes, so it's always worth a try. If you're happy with the views from your garden then there's no need to go anywhere else - but if you want to get everything you can out of your scope then you'll want to get it to the darkest place you can conveniently reach.

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what sort of magnification should i be looking at for galaxies and the messier objects

are alot of them relatively large....ie use my 25mm eye piece? or do i need to get quite high mag for some of them?

i have a 2x barlow, a 25mm and a 10mm

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For what it's worth, I normally use 25mm and 15mm eyepieces for galaxies. The only DSOs I tend to magnify are the brighter globulars and planetary nebulae (which can be quite small).

Emission nebulae, galaxies and open clusters are generally best at lower magnification.

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Emission nebulae, galaxies and open clusters are generally best at lower magnification.

Magnification reduces the surface brightness of a DSO, and how far you can magnify depends on the brightness of the sky itself. Lowest magnification always yields the highest surface brightness image, but not the most detail. So you start low and work up. At my dark site with a 12" scope I do most of my galaxy oberving with 8mm or 6mm eyepieces, occasionally going to 4mm; at the same site with an 8" I went up to 8mm. At a light polluted site I would have no chance of going this high, even if I could see the object to begin with at low or medium power. But I'm generally going after small, faint objects. For large, bright ones (e.g. Messiers) low power sweeping usually works well enough.

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