Northern Hemisphere DSO's

[goolosh]

Hello All!

So far i've been sticking to Messier objects because i figure if good old Chuck could see them with his 100mm scope then my 6 inch schmidt-cassegrain could see them easily enough.

I'm far less familiar with the Caldwell and NGC objects and was wondering what are some of the communities favorites in those lists?

A side question, regarding the Cat's Eye Nebula. This object is very bright from where i've been looking, much brighter than say the Ring Nebula. Only there is basically zero detail. Would details come out better with a nebula filter? Would there be more detail with a long exposure photo ect? I can get this object in my FOV with a 6mm and a 2x Barlow and it's still very bright but just as unresolved as ever. Any advice on this particular object?

[nmoushon]

If you don't already, I would suggest getting Stellarium and in the setting you can slide a tab that when moved will show more fainter objects the farther you slide it. The more common and bright objects will have name tags along side the dot pin pointing their location. You can then find objects that aren't normally listed in famous lists. And some even have pictures loaded into the program that when you "zoom" in you can see what they look like.

Another way is to filter objects through their apparent size and brightness. You can then compare it to objects you've already seen and the can chose what new objects to look for based on thier brightness and size. This is what I did for both Messier and Caldwell list so that I know about how much an object will fill up my FOV when imaging. Especially since I'm in very LP skies and sometimes can't see and object visually but can still camture it when I do long exsposure imaging.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Im working through the Messiers now, (barely started) but 110 objects will keep me going a long while as im horrible at star hopping. Not all the caldwell objects are visable from the northern hemisphere, so you'd need to work out how many you can see, i think its 70 or 80. Or you could go on holiday and use it as an excuse

[crazyjedi]

I'm in the same boat as Matt - I'm still making my way through the M's and am also similarly pants at star hopping. I suffer from light pollution quite badly and hence the faint fuzzy objects are a bit of a challenge. Believe it or not I had a real struggle to find one of my favourites M13. It is easily visible once found but I actually had trouble finding the key stone asterism of Hercules first. Even though it is right next to the top of the summer triangle it was just a little faint and indistinct. It took me quite a while but eventually after sitting in a deck chair peering up for a while it sprang out at me and M13 was right where it always was!

I wish I was as adept at hunting these things down.

It's still fun trying!!!

[umadog]

Cat's Eye is pretty small so you need high power and good seeing to get detail.

Find the Astronomical League website. The Urban List and Herschel 400 would both provide nice targets. Quite a few of the H400 are also M (IIRC) and C objects. However, plenty of the H400 are challenging and need darker skies.

[glowjet]

Treat yourself to a copy of The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders, there has been a lot written about this excellent 500 odd page ( not overly expensive ) paperback, without going into detail here. suffice to say that you will not be short of popular objects to view in 50 of the main Constellations

John.

[pvaz]

In truth most of the objects on other lists don't show much detail. If you ware to make a list of the best objects to see, then you'll likely include about 40 or 50 of the Messiers and just a few others wich are not included in the list.

Anyway here are some of my favorites non-messier objects:

NGC 6960 and 6992 the veil nebula (it's so big you'll have to pan around to see it all using the widest field EP, looks close enough to what's seen in pictures if you use an UHC or OIII filter)

NGC7789 the "white rose cluster" in cassiopeia (use about 100x)

NGC884 and 869 Double cluster (use the widest angle you have)

Stock 2 aka the stickman (use binoculars, won't fit in the scope FOV)

NGC 6543 Cat's Eye nebula

NGC 2392 Eskimo Nebula

NGC 7009 Saturn nebula

For the planetary nebulae look for an out of focus blob then use about 200x.

[AlBoning]

NGC 457, the Owl Cluster, aka the E. T. Cluster and Caldwell 13, in Cassiopeia is a favorite of mine.

You can try SAC'S 110 Best of the NGC

http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/Book_110BestOfNGC.htm

And when you're done with that Deep Sky collections and catalogs similar to Messier's

http://messier.seds.org/xtra/similar/similar.html