Making DSO's more visable

[swamp thing]

Ouch!

Yeah! Think I'd do the same at that price, bet they get loads of customers wanting that done.........not.

[pel]

When I first started out in astronomy 20 years ago, first thing I got my hands on was Wil Tirions Sky Atlas 2000.0, field edition. Huge charts, very detailed. I gauged my finder FOV using stars, then cut a hole in black card to emulate this.

I then placed this onto the chart being used, and hopped to the desired object. VERY effective. Infact going to make a new one at the weekend.

Top tip Eddie. I will use that one myself. Very similar idea to the FOV function I have heard about on Stellarium.

I have now bought a BST Explorer 25mm from Alan on Ebay and a SW LP filter. I'm going to give those a go as well as the Skymaps Acey recommended. (When it starts getting dark a bit earlier)

[nytecam]

Thanks for the reply. My ultimate goal is to photograph the Galaxies, but I am just beginning so I am leaving the DSLR mods. for now.

To begin with I just want to enhance the clarity of the DSO's in the finder scope or in the viewfinder for now so I can find the DSO's easi er and then image them. I'm not that bothered by image quality or lack of HA for now. I have the old Orangey/Yellow street lamps locally but also have the Orange sky over Reading to contend with 5-10 miles away.I'm not that keen on travelling to a dark Sky site, too much hassle. I just want to make the best of it in the back garden, From what you have said and as I am just trying to make locating the DSO's easier, I think an LP filter is the way to go, do you agree? Cheers, Perry.

You have exactly the same parameters as me eg image DSOs fom LP backyard - in truth finder filters aren't going to make much difference under these conditions. I use an e-finder with 85mm camera lens before a small CCD cam which gives a 4 deg wide fov and in 1s exp records mag 9-10 stars - 10s exp the form of brighter gxys like M51/M81 etc viewed on the laptop and trumps any optical finder hands down. Check my sig link below for my e-finder on YT vids etc