am I expecting to much?

[firstscope]

i went out with my celestron firstscope tonignt and i was looking for some dso's but i couldnt find any.am i exspecting to much from it? but i did catch a satellite crossing the sky in my EP which was cool

[John]

Which DSO's were you looking for ?

Virtually any scope is capable of showing some DSO's but you do need to know exactly where to point it, unless you have GOTO of course.

I even managed to see a few of the brighter galaxies with my old TASCO 60mm refractor.

PS: knowing what scope you have would be useful too

[JamesF]

You'll certainly be able to see some DSOs with it, but you may well need to stick to the smaller, brighter ones until you get your eye in. Messier did have access to scopes with much larger aperture, but it's thought that because of the materials used they'd barely be comparable with your scope now. Of course he didn't also have a load of light pollution.

M13 might be a good place to start as it's fairly bright and quite high in the sky at the moment. There are also a fair few around Ursa Major, but some are very faint so you'd need to pick carefully. Lower in the sky, M22 is quite bright and fairly easy to find if you have a clear-ish southern horizon. M4 isn't too hard either, and M16,17 and 18 may well be visible too.

For all their brightness these objects may well still only appear as a faint grey smudge though. It's easy to miss them if the contrast is low, or even to assume they're just a trick of the light sometimes.

James

[firstscope]

hey john i have this http://www.celestron.com/astronomy/telescopes/celestron-firstscope-telescope.html and cheers james i reckon the neighbours outside light dont help i need to higher the fence and block it out

[Kevdan]

Hi,

It is mostly dependant on light pollution, the 76mm aperture should show you some dso's but if your in a town thats even remotely light polluted then im afraid it may struggle, if you took it to a dark site things will be so much different.

Also with a focal length of just 300mm and presuming your using the 4mm eyepiece which gives around 75x mag which is ok but it's light gathering at 76mm aperture doesnt realy capture much, there are other factors as well like collimation which all make a difference.

Kev.

[John]

As Kev says, a 76mm scope is going to struggle to show deep sky objects when there is any light pollution around. On the plus side, it's a very portable scope so, if you can, take it camping or similar and get under some dark skies. Also get a good guide to the night sky like "Turn Left at Orion". That should help you find some of the brighter DSO's which your scope will show.

[cantab]

Many a time I've looked for and not found DSOs, especially galaxies which are really hurt by light pollution. My 15x70 binoculars will probably perform quite similarly to your scope, although I suspect the eyepiece you have will give a rather narrower field of view, and you can see the list of things I've seen in my sig. Some are obvious, but others are really hard to spot, faint fuzzies glimpsed with averted vision. With more experience I'm getting a better idea of what I can and can't expect to see.

Dealing with the local lights will really help, even if the sky was really dark a nearby light would stop you properly dark adapting.

Also, the nights are short and light at this time of year. I reckon on an observing window of about midnight to 2am when it's dark enough to be worthwhile.

[Capricorn]

Looking at the scope I would half guess that it could be a simple case of pointing the scope at the object. There appears to be no provision for a finder and aiming a scope accurate enough to actually point at a specific object is not easy.

Your scope does not really lend itself to looking along the main body for approximate alignment either. I have a small 70mm on a tall Alt/Az mount and it takes a few attempts to get that pointed at what I want and to have it in view. I can look straight up the outside of the tube with mine, you cannot.

Also and just in case first aim the scope at a patch of the sky with lots of stars present, Casseiopia area, and get the stars in focus first. It helps afterwards if you are reasonably sure that everything is more or less in foicus and so should be visible.

[sgazer]

That scope is going to be fairly limited and your neighbours light (even with a high fence) will probably finish off any chance of seeing all but the brightest DSOs. You may be able to see Andromeda and Orion nebula with a low power eyepiece, because they are big and bright, also the moon will be good.

When you say you were looking for DSOs, were you looking for a specific one and how were you trying to find it? Or were you just scanning around the sky?