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Views not what they should be ?


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Hi all,

Had a crispy clear night last night so decided not to try any imaging and find some messiers,

Managed to find M65 & M66, M51, M81, couldnt see anything of the rosette nebula but find NGC2244 very easy used 4 eyepieces from 26mm down to 5mm.

However my views, and I am in a fairly light polluted area(about 6 on stellarium) are not what I would consider good, Comparing images to the field of view calculator (I know image will not be anywhere near the quality on here) The size of the messiers is definately not the same as the FOV calculator, According to the FOV Calc what im seeing through my Celestron X-cell-LX 5mm should be 10x what i am actually seeing, I appreciate that most of the time messiers are just smudges and a lot of purists go on about distance the light has travelled which I have no argument with, but for visual viewing is not impressive at all, Only realy good stuff for me in my back garden to view is M42, Pleaides, and a few globular and open clusters.

So basically is this all down to bad LP, or is there something else involved. Oh and if I put a LP filter in it appears to just turn the image purple and lessen the brightness, planets are good Saturn and Jupiter both very good with the X-Cell-LX. Mars and venus both just blobs of light.

Ok moan over,

But is there anything I can do to help my situation,

Kev.

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light pollution plays a HUGE part...i used to live in a village with a streetlight outside- ruined it, even though there were a couple of houses and thats it-

now i live in the middle of a field and its just soo much better

best advice- find a good dark site (if possible)

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Hi Kevdan,

Your setup is exactly what im going to be getting in a few months. Hopefully i wont have the same issues as mine is going to be kept at my parents house which is on the coast so they have no LP.

If you have a look at the deep sky imaging section there are some awesome images taken with the SW150P.

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/125527-2010-deep-sky-imaging-showcase.html some of the people are using the SW150P for these images

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I'm not disputing the scopes ability, Im disputing my ability or rather asking "Am I doing anything wrong" I have taken some (by my standards) very good M42 and M31 images, M13 and the double cluster NGC 884/869, I am about to make the Mod to my dual axis handset to start autoguiding, I've only been doing this for just over 12 months, I have learnt so much but now have aperture fever and will be upgrading big style some time in the near future.

It's probably me just wanting to run before I can walk, But I just want to make the most of the times when we do get chance to get the scope out, I know the universe isnt going anywhere (Hopefully).

Not sure wether it's me being idle but at the moment I dont realy fancy the idea of travelling to dark sites and then setting up, But then again never realy been to one, so when I do go it might change my point of view.

Kev.

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are you talking about imaging or visual astronomy? I have not seen the pictures in the FOV calculator you are using but if they are images of galaxies rather than e.g. sketches of what people have seen at the eyepiece then you are bound to see a lot less than shown. the reason for this is you are probably only seeing the brighter core of galaxies.

to see more you need to do one or more of the following: 1) go to a dark site with your current scope 2) buy a larger aperture scope 3) go to a dark site with your larger aperture scope 4) accept that imaging is the only way to get larger images of galaxies etc.

personally I went for option 2) and occasionally 3). imaging is not for me.

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Option 2 is why im going for the kill in the form of a 250 PDS on a NEQ6, that way, apart from going to very expensive kit, I can not realy upgrade and scope/mount should last a good 10 yrs or more.

Kev.

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