Getting a little disheartened...........

[Qualia]

M13 finally!...their it was off to one centre in the Seben zoom in all it's glory!

Bingo.

If you get a chance this evening, M 57 should offer a fine view and another object to which you can sharpen your hunting skills.

[jason.p]

I've just been reading through this thread and feel slightly more heartened. I managed to get up at 1am on what promised to be a clear sky. And true enough it was, absolutely spectacular!

I'd studied the planisphere and other star charts and my aim was to find Polaris just with eyeballs. Easy enough I thought. Not so, I was totally confused and the only thing I recognised for sure was what I call the Plough in the Western sky. I came in, looked at the charts several times then gave up at around 2am. Got to work today and feel a bit tired, but will try again tonight. This time I'll use Stellarium and perhaps draw a map.

The thought going through my mind was that if I can't find things with my eyes how on earth will I be able to find anything through the scope

I'm sure I'm not the first or last to experience this confusion, but I was totally disheartened.

Jason

[sunshine185]

What scope do you have Jason?

[MarkTwo]

Just a suggestion, the widest possible field of view would be a big help to navigation. Borrow some binoculars if possible. With good conditions it should be quite easy to find in them and the experience will give you better knowledge of the area and finding your way around. Then you can whip out Big Bertha and give it the full treatment.

Good hunting,

Mark

[cotterless45]

When your Telrad arrives , get these printed off, bingo!

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.atmob.org%2Flibrary%2Fmember%2Fskymaps_jsmall.html&ei=VJMPUNyDEoSf0QXmooCIAw&usg=AFQjCNFoTkZHt8o-Dn47yT0rds71S8TMug

[Qualia]

I've just been reading through this thread and feel slightly more heartened. I managed to get up at 1am on what promised to be a clear sky. And true enough it was, absolutely spectacular!

I'd studied the planisphere and other star charts and my aim was to find Polaris just with eyeballs. Easy enough I thought. Not so, I was totally confused and the only thing I recognised for sure was what I call the Plough in the Western sky. I came in, looked at the charts several times then gave up at around 2am. Got to work today and feel a bit tired, but will try again tonight. This time I'll use Stellarium and perhaps draw a map.

The thought going through my mind was that if I can't find things with my eyes how on earth will I be able to find anything through the scope

I'm sure I'm not the first or last to experience this confusion, but I was totally disheartened.

Jason

Jason, I agree that stargazing can be cleary an exercise in frustration and I have found the following to be the best way to capture those DSOs.

i) Get yourself a decent star map. I find Star Atlas by Sky and Telescope indispensable. It's not that expensive, it's a piece of art in itself and it is extremely useful.

ii) If your Tal has the standard 6x30mm view finder, although an excellent tool in its own right, it might be better to upgrade to a bigger view finder. I have found that Skywatcher's 9x50mm is the business and it ought to be the right angled correct image one. The finderscope has a lovely white and black finish which will look the business on your own OTA. 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) A Telrad will be a big help. In non-LP 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. The only negative point about 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) Your low magnification EPs will be your workhorses and Tal's 25mm is of excellent quality (nothing much between it and Celestron's X-Cel LX). The low mag EP (the 40mm more so) will offer you sufficient sky to manage along with your star map and it will hopefully pick out or hint at what you're hunting.

v) Curiously, sketches are often overlooked, but they ought to be viewed from time to time. NASA photos or those produced here are not really 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) The book, Turn Left at Orion 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) If you can master 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 and they're not playing about. So, if you don't succeed one night, no worries. Don't be down hearted, 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.

viii) There are some little tricks you can learn to find yourself about. For example, find the plough in Ursa Major and look for Merek and Dubhe, the distance and angle between these two is one step. Now count that distance, in that direction another 5 steps and bingo, you'll be with Polaris. Now go back to the Plough and find its end star, Alkaid. Take a jump and dive from her and the next brightest star will be Arcturus. From Arcturus, do a jump and instead of diving make a flight upwards and along a bit and you should come across another bright star, this will be Vega. Just up and to her left will be Deneb and a free drop down from Deneb, should come across Altair.

I hope that helps a little. Good luck, and clear skies, Jason

[ollypenrice]

I'll second John's recommendation of the Cambridge Photographic Atlas of the Stars. It is a great way to rehearse your evening in advance and 'get your eye in.'

A Telrad makes it easy because the 4 degree circle of the outer ring is easy to frame in the Keystone shape.

You don't need to fix a laser to your scope, just fire it through the finder. This is a great trick and saves wear and tear on the neck.

M13 is on the naked eye limit for me these days but I live at a very dark site. It used to be easier but that's age for you! However, it only looks like a faint star.

Olly

[jason.p]

@Sunshine185. My scope is a TAL2 150mmx1200mm (f/8)

@Qualia. I've taken all your points on board, many thanks.

I'll order "Star Atlas" ASAP. I'll definitely get "Turn left at Orion" when I've got a bit more experience.

The finderscope is the original x8. An upgrade certainly would be useful, although I understand the x8 is a pretty good finder. Certainly a correct image would help.

Telrad is on my wanted list, (probably best coupled with a correct image finder).

(Patience is not a problem, my other passion is fishing)

I will certainly not give up.Just seeing that clear sky and the milky way etc was inspiring.

Thanks again for the advice

Jason

[carlc]

M13 finally!

Well tonight was the night.Got the telrad just about in the right place using the maps and hey presto,their it was off to one centre in the Seben zoom in all it's glory!Started off as a 'fuzzy' then zoomed in to get individual stars.The viewing conditions weren't great either,really thin haze and the cloud kept rolling in too which limited the viewing experience but overall I'm well chuffed.

Other things I saw was a shooting star and then a sat,as it passed overhead it shone really brightly then went to a dot of light which i'd never seen before!

I don't think I would have found M13 if it wasn't for the telrad,well worth the expense although i'm not overally impressed the dew shield +

Get in my son!

Nice one (my turn now - bet I take longer).

[carlc]

v) Curiously, sketches are often overlooked, but they ought to be viewed from time to time. NASA photos or those produced here are not really 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.

vii) If you can master 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 and they're not playing about. So, if you don't succeed one night, no worries. Don't be down hearted, 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.

V) - No offence to the AP guys (love their stuff) but I find sketches more useful for helping me identify if what is in the scope is actually what I was looking for.

vii) Artist AND poet/philosopher! Lovely bit of writing.