What to look at?

[joeWyncoll]

After a night observing last night, in which I think I caught a glimpse of the ring nebula, I am now wondering what else is in the sky at the moment visible with a 4" refractor?

[nightfisher]

have you got stellarium on your pc? this will show whats in the night sky.........and its free to use

[Pete Presland]

M13 is pretty easy to see and not far from the ring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hercules_constellation_map.png

[Capricorn]

Buy something like The Monthly Sky Guide by Ridpath.

There is a guide for each month of a prominent constellation and what is in that constellation.

Means that for the one clear night each month you have an idea of what to look at.

[mdstuart]

I would (after getting Stellarium) go for..

Albeiro the double in Cygnus..Then M27 the dumbell nebula in VUL...try to split the double on the Dolphins nose...Then after your eyes are dark adapted try M81/82 above and right of the Plough in the west..Finish by scanning Cassiopea for cluster inc 7789..

Enjoy

Mark

[swamp thing]

Hi

Some great targets already been mentioned but lets not forget this seasons finest sight. The Milky Way itself, I would suggest stick your lowest power eyepiece in the focuser and them slacken your mount off (makes hand guiding miles better) then go for a trip along the splendour of our Galaxy. You are bound to run into clusters and nebulae at some point but just have some fun wandering about.

I often use the wandering method this time of year great fun.

Enjoy

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[umadog]

I think the best recommendation I can give you is to buy a good book which shows you how to find a bunch of interesting objects. Turn Left at Orion is a time-honoured one that's just come out in a new edition. Give it a shot!

[Uranium235]

lets not forget this seasons finest sight. The Milky Way itself

Absolutely right, the next couple of months is the ideal time for the MW. Its high overhead, and real easy to pick out with the naked eye. If you have a good view to the south M16 is fairly do-able with a 4" as I did it with an ST80 last year just by star hopping and having stellarium to hand for cross reference. Its not around for long though, so bag it while you can

[farunj]

I would recommend turn left at orion as well as stellarium. TLAO will help you in the field while you can decide your targets with stellarium!

[pvaz]

If you have a clear line to the South then I would suggest the Messiers in the area of Scorpio and Sagittarius. These are only available this time of year and some of them are very interesting, specially the nebulas.

Here's the list: M4, M8, M16, M17, M20 and M22. Here are the star charts for these objects (and a few fainter ones):

http://www.astro-tom...arts/map9.pdf��

http://www.astro-tom...harts/map10.pdf

I never tried them with a 4" but they are bright enough to be detectable and maybe even show some detail. Detail will depend a lot on how dark your location is.

[Mr Q]

After a night observing last night, in which I think I caught a glimpse of the ring nebula, I am now wondering what else is in the sky at the moment visible with a 4" refractor?

Joe - look at my avatar! That was easy wasn't it? Seriously, when you thought you saw the Ring, did you change to a medium to high power? It takes high power well since its surface brightness is very high. If you saw a "fuzzy" star at low power, that was it. Your 4" should detect many DSOs (deep space objects) if you have fairly dark skies. The suggestions in the above replies are very good to start with.

To help you find your way around the night sky, you can print out monthly sky charts from the link below. Almost all the objects listed each month are easily accessable in your scope.

SKYMAPS

P.S. If I missed you in the introductions, welcome aboard and have fun!

[Josh Wilson]

I use Sky and Telescope's 'Sky this week' which gives weekly updates about what's in the sky during the week. It gives planetary updates, such as rise and set times, seeing, and constellations they are lined up with. The rest of the site has many other useful tools including positions of Saturn and Jupiter's moons, Jupiter's GRS, phases of the moon and ISS visibility times, and a whole lot more.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance

[Mr Q]

Nice source of observing info, Josh. Ive' bookmarked the site and will pass it on to others.

How much LP do you have there? When I recently lived in north central NM, in a high desert region at 7500 feet elevation, my skies were so dark, the Milky Way casted shadows on the ground. And the skies were crystal clear except for an occasional wild fire smoke haze. Now I'm back to the light polluted skies of the NE and have to travel 30 miles to a decent dark site. And have you seen the Omega glob yet? It's an awesome glob the size of the full Moon and a naked eye object in dark skies. I was blown away when I first saw it.

[andrew63]

There is a n incredible amount of stuff to see in a 4". I have similar scope, and was looking at M57 last night- At 27x it was tiny but you could see it was not a star. At 55x the ring with a whole was beginning to become apparent. M42 in orion is a fine sight which will be rising in the coming weeks. But for me there's nothing like 'seeing' galaxies - most will be like puffs of smoke in small telescope but you have to consider what they are and how far they are away...

M31 in andromeda is very bright and a good start and try M81 and M82 in ursa major both visible in the same field of view and again quite bright. Good luck in your searching !

PS had a look at the andromeda galaxy also with my 10x50s and was surprised how big it was !

andrew