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Best sights with a 4.5" reflector?

midjam

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midjam

midjam

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I'm new to the hobby and have had some really nice views of the moon and Saturn through my 4.5" reflector, according to Stellarium I would have to be up at around 2-4am to see Jupiter at the moment.

Does anyone have any advice on what DSOs to search for while I wait for a view of Jupiter, something I could see through my scope? Providing the great British weather clears up :)

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NGC 1502

NGC 1502

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Does anyone have any advice on what DSOs to search for while I wait for a view of Jupiter, something I could see through my scope? Providing the great British weather clears up :)

You can do a lot of great astronomy with a 4.5" reflector. For DSOs, the Messier list is a good start and will keep you busy, here's a link -

http://www.naasbeginners.co.uk/MESSIER.htm

Regards, Ed.

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fredster

fredster

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The great globular cluster M13 in Hercules is a good object for this time of year.

And its nearby neighbour M92, another nice globular cluster that is an easy target for a 4.5".

The Ring Nebula in Lyra is very easy to find and your 4.5 will have no problem showing it nicely. Once there its worth moving across to Cygnusand the double star Albireo (arguably the best in the sky). And then move onto another planetary nebula, M27 in Vulpecula.

Should be great in the 4.5.

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JamesF

JamesF

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Pretty much all of the Messier objects should be yours for the taking, though some are harder than others. If you have a clear southern horizon there are more galaxies and clusters than you can shake a hairy stick at in Virgo and around Sagittarius and Scutum, though Virgo is probably getting past its best for this year. It's hard to point a wide-field scope south and not find something of interest at the moment. If the cloud ever lifts, at any rate.

James

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midjam

midjam

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And its nearby neighbour M92, another nice globular cluster that is an easy target for a 4.5".

The Ring Nebula in Lyra is very easy to find and your 4.5 will have no problem showing it nicely. Once there its worth moving across to Cygnusand the double star Albireo (arguably the best in the sky). And then move onto another planetary nebula, M27 in Vulpecula.

Should be great in the 4.5.

Another couple of sights to my list thanks

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midjam

midjam

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Pretty much all of the Messier objects should be yours for the taking, though some are harder than others. If you have a clear southern horizon there are more galaxies and clusters than you can shake a hairy stick at in Virgo and around Sagittarius and Scutum, though Virgo is probably getting past its best for this year. It's hard to point a wide-field scope south and not find something of interest at the moment. If the cloud ever lifts, at any rate.

James

Thanks, I'm starting to see the frustration in this hobby. Since getting my scope I have been closely watching the weather forecast, hoping for clear skies :)

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fredster

fredster

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Thanks, I'm starting to see the frustration in this hobby. Since getting my scope I have been closely watching the weather forecast, hoping for clear skies :)

That is the biggest problem with the hobby :rolleyes:

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Qualia

Qualia

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Midjam, I've written up af plan for summer viewing that I'm working through with my 4" refractor: It should offer a decent place to see what's out there and what might be possible with your own Newtonian.

Good luck and clear skies to you :icon_salut:

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midjam

midjam

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The sky was fairly clear last night (for a while) so, got my scope out to try and find some DSO's. I used Stellarium to find out where Saturn was and saw that Arcturus was right above it, used that as a point to scan the skies for M13, M5, M3 and M53 as they were nearby. Used a piece of paper and covered the monitor, placed dots on the paper and labeled them as I didn't want to keep coming indoors to look at Stellarium. Unfortunaly I could not find any of them, probably a combination of low power scope, moon light pollution and lack of knowledge. I didn't try and use any of the setting circles on the mount as I like the thrill of trying to find them manually. I have contacted a local group and will go down to the next meeting, think I need to get some tips (I'm not one for quiting, I hate when someone can do something I can't) :)

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stevetynant

stevetynant

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absolutely don't give up - the best is yet to come- if the truth be told this may be the worst time to be starting in a lot of respects.

Get together with your local group - keep reading and asking questions on this forum and before you know it the really dark nights will be back and your scope will get a huge new lease of life..

Its frustrating for all of us at the moment unfortunately but I've resigned myself to the fact that for me at least this is a three season hobby.

Good luck but don't give up :grin: :grin:

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midjam

midjam

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It's a little frustrating due to the weather, time of year and low quality scope but, I'm saving up for a 8-10" dob and I'm sure things will become clearer with that beast. Thanks for the encouraging words :)

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Qualia

Qualia

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The sky was fairly clear last night (for a while) so, got my scope out to try and find some DSO's. I used Stellarium to find out where Saturn was and saw that Arcturus was right above it, used that as a point to scan the skies for M13, M5, M3 and M53 as they were nearby. Used a piece of paper and covered the monitor, placed dots on the paper and labeled them as I didn't want to keep coming indoors to look at Stellarium. Unfortunaly I could not find any of them, probably a combination of low power scope, moon light pollution and lack of knowledge. I didn't try and use any of the setting circles on the mount as I like the thrill of trying to find them manually. I have contacted a local group and will go down to the next meeting, think I need to get some tips (I'm not one for quiting, I hate when someone can do something I can't) :)

Hiya Midjam, thanks for the report and it is good to hear that you've had the opportunity to get out and do a bit of stargazing even thouugh the weather at the moment isn't that conducive to astronomy.

For future reference, rather than pencil sketching the image from Stellarium just push Ctrl and S together and it will save you the image in negative which can then be printed out. I haven't found this to be very useful but it may help.

I've written very much the same else where, and I'm not to sure if the situation is exactly the same but the predicament is reasonably close. My own problem at the beginning was threefold:

i) LP, a city centre's LP which means many stars are just not visible to the naked eye.

ii) you eventually line up the scope to the given looking area, you check it out in the finderscope and baam, a whole load of sparklers looking all pretty much the same and you're not too sure where exactly you are.

iii) so you start moving about a little and the finderscope is going all wrong; up is down and down is up and the stars are drifting to the left (west) but after so many years living on Earth, using binos or just the naked eye, your tired brain is figuring that drift should be going the other way, and so on and so forth.

This is cleary an exercise in frustration and I have found the following to be the best way to capture those DSOs and Double Star systems:

i) Maps: Star Atlas by Sky and Telescope. It's not that expensive, it's a piece of art in itself and it is extremely useful. Much more than Stellarium I find.

ii) Finderscope: A nice big finder, a 9x50mm, the right angled correct image ones. This delivers to you stars right down to about magnitude 8, even if you're in a LP area, meaning you’ll be able to see every star plotted on the Sky Atlas and when you move amongst those stars, your left is left and your up is up.

iii) Telrad. These must surely be the business in dark areas. Position the bullseye, or the other two rings in the proper place against the stars and you’re more or less done. If you're out a little you can work out where you are by the three ringed cirlces giving you varying degrees of the sky you're looking at. You can make a plastic Telrad overlay for the Star Atlas or just print one of the free Telrad maps on the net (Stellarium has exactly the same function). The only negative feature of the Telrad is that it can’t deliver more stars than your eyes alone can see, so If you're in an LP area, they really do speed up your finding, really do help to judge where you are, but it must be used in conjunction with the findercope.

iv) EP: A low magnification EP. If you've got the dosh, make it a wide field one. My own workhorse EP gives me about 35x. A low mag EP is great. It'll offer sufficient sky to manage along with your star map and it will hopefully pick out or hint at what you're hunting.

v) Sketches: make sure you're aware of what you're looking for. NASA photos or those produced here are not going to help you. You need to check out the sketches. These are generally produced by patient observers who are trying their best to get the EP image just-right, so the little drawings should give you a very good idea of what the dso being hunted will more or less look like.

vi) Turn Left at Orion: this is a book which is well worth your time. It'll explain what are some of the more important objects worth going for in a particular season. It'll explain how you get there (it more or less assumes you're in a dark area, so if not, keep your wits about you). It explains how you move your non-correct image finderscope to star-hop to the given dso (again, if you've got a correct image finderscope keep alert) and it offers a little 'positive' sketch of what the thing looks like in a normal scope (I imagine anything between a 4" decent refractor to an 8" newtonian).

vii) Zen-like Calm: if you can master your patience you'll be a master of yourself and the night sky will be a good teacher. She'll teach patience and careful watchfulness; she'll teach industry and care and above all the night sky teaches entire trust. Those stars and DSOs are not going anywhere quick, they won't desert you; they'll be back tomorrow. So, if you don't succeed one night, no worries, you've probably already discovered something new about yourself, your equipment, the sky, and those stars and DSOs will be back to give you another chance tomorrow.

Good luck, and clear skies to you, Midjam :icon_salut:

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midjam

midjam

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Thank you Qualia for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it! You have given me some very useful tips, I was using a 25mm to scan the sky as I figured I would get a wider view would my 9mm be better? I'll check out some sketches, telrads and left turn at orion thanks again.

BTW; I didn't know about the CTRL+S function on Stellarium that might come in handy :)

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earth titan

earth titan

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Thank you Qualia for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it! You have given me some very useful tips, I was using a 25mm to scan the sky as I figured I would get a wider view would my 9mm be better? I'll check out some sketches, telrads and left turn at orion thanks again.

BTW; I didn't know about the CTRL+S function on Stellarium that might come in handy :)

Stick with the 25 (I use 40mm) for scanning the sky. Once you find the object, centre it up and choose an ep.

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midjam

midjam

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Stick with the 25 (I use 40mm) for scanning the sky. Once you find the object, centre it up and choose an ep.

Thanks, I did try the 9mm last night which was a alot more difficult.

Still no DSO's I think it's just not dark enough with the moon up, I know I should have stayed in and done some research but, with the way the weather has been I'm grabbing any chance I can get :)

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Mr Q

Mr Q

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Midjam - I agree with the others in looking at the Messiers and here is a useful site with all the Messiers and finder charts to locate them. I once had a 4.5" reflector and was able to observe DSOs down to 10th mag. in fairly dark skies so there are LOTS of objects you can observe with that scope.

http://www.custerobservatory.org/docs/messier1.pdf

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midjam

midjam

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Midjam - I agree with the others in looking at the Messiers and here is a useful site with all the Messiers and finder charts to locate them. I once had a 4.5" reflector and was able to observe DSOs down to 10th mag. in fairly dark skies so there are LOTS of objects you can observe with that scope.

http://www.custerobs...cs/messier1.pdf

Thanks, that will come in handy :)

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