Finding M68

[JamesF]

I've spent three quarters of an hour this evening hunting down M68 with the ST120. For most of that time I've had it centred right in the middle of the eyepiece, but I just can't see it. I occasionally caught what I thought was a fleeting glimpse of fuzziness as a tapped the scope, but for me that's really not good enough. If I can't look into the eyepiece and mentally point to it and say "that's M68" then as far as I'm concerned it doesn't count.

Here's what I could see:

I'd star-hopped to the star at the bottom right from Corvus and could make out the brighter three of the four stars in a rough line below M68 as well as the single bright star above it and the mag 9.6-ish star highlighted by the cursor. M68 was nowhere to be seen.

I know it's going to be an awkward one because at best it's barely twelve degrees above the horizon (I'm 51 deg N) and I've got no cause for complaint being in a position to see almost down to mag 10 close to the horizon only a month before the summer solstice in the first place, but are there any tricks I can try to help me see it, or is it just a case of using more aperture?

James

[Double Kick Drum]

Elusive!

TBH I haven't tried for it yet due to its low low elevation. There doesn't seem any point without a near perfect sky. Same for M83.

Why couldn't Charles Messier have been Danish!

[JamesF]

Oddly enough, M83 is the other one I'm waiting to find in the same patch of sky

I think they're probably the trickiest two Messier objects from my latitude because they barely get high enough above the horizon to be visible and at entirely the wrong time of year for seeing fairly low brightness objects. I'm not even sure that M83 makes it to ten degrees above the horizon here. If we go south on holiday this year I'm definitely taking a scope with me, just to see if I can find them from an easier location.

James

[Mike73]

I got both M83 and M68 out a couple weeks ago but like you it was a real struggle with M83 being by far the hardest find of the two.

I was at a dark site with ELM 5.6 skies on a cliff facing South over the SW approaches of the English Channel, Lat 50.3.

Sounds ideal doesn't it? Well it wasn't! There must of been a very fine sea mist or something affecting the seeing as M83 was so hard to find and when I eventually caught it it really was a very faint fuzzy seen best with a 12mm (x125). Other magnifications of x83 and x60 made it all but invisible which explains why I could hardly see it when I was sweeping the area.

The northern most star(VM4.2) of Centaurus wasn't even visible so no star hopping to find it just swept the area and caught it with averted vision.

M83 took 40 minutes to find.

M68 was far easier and took about 10mins by star hopping from the star in Corvus north north east of M68. A lot more impressive than M83 although after those two I swung around to M13 just to make sure my eyes still actually worked!

[JamesF]

Interesting that you found a higher magnification useful. I might give that a go this evening. I was wondering if it might help, but I couldn't justify why it might.

I had wondered if it might be easier facing out over the sea because of the complete lack of light pollution. I'd not even thought of problems with mist.

M83 is a bit of a pig to star-hop to, isn't it? No nearby bright stars and even the chains of stars leading down from the closest Hydra stars leave plenty of opportunity for getting lost.

James

[Mike73]

Interesting that you found a higher magnification useful. I might give that a go this evening. I was wondering if it might help, but I couldn't justify why it might.

I had wondered if it might be easier facing out over the sea because of the complete lack of light pollution. I'd not even thought of problems with mist.

M83 is a bit of a pig to star-hop to, isn't it? No nearby bright stars and even the chains of stars leading down from the closest Hydra stars leave plenty of opportunity for getting lost.

James

Maybe it was because I could only really make out the central bulge? If it were anywhere else in the sky it would stick out like a sore thumb as its a fairly big and bright galaxy.

Looking forward to trying to find it again.

[JamesF]

Well, I'm pleased to say that having been out again this evening (which is actually not a bad evening at all here), I've managed to find M68. A definite fuzzy patch, but that's it.

I then decided to have a crack at M83 which is marginally lower in the sky, but slightly brighter. I could see both pi and gamma Hya and running down from gamma to the left slightly I found a nice "Chaplin's cane" asterism (green) with a bow tie (blue) at the bottom:

There may have been something fuzzy where M83 should have been, but I honestly couldn't be sure. Something vague kept flickering in and out of my averted gaze, but I really can't say that it was there for sure. I think it might have to be the one that got away this evening.

James

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I found both M68 and M83 very elusive, low surface-brightness affairs. I only just managed to see them in crystal clear skies when they were overhead (down-under) with my 15x70 bins. It was a struggle in averted vision even then. I have not seen them from these latitudes yet, even in my C8.