How do you find things? E.g. DSOs

[pvaz]

It looked quite dim to me, but in the book it says "...it is reasonably small but bright.". What gives?

On a dark site it is somewhat bright, at least as far as DSOs can be bright. Your light pollution will give you a hard time on DSOs. :/

That visible/invisible effect you describe may have a few causes:

1) light pollution washing out the DSO

2) atmospheric (seeing) conditions. When you look up naked eye and the stars appear to shimmer, then that effect will be amplified through the scope. A bit like looking through the air boiling on top a candle's flame.

You can't solve LP unless you find a darker observing spot. The second problem can be reduced by looking at objects when they are high in the sky (thinner atmosphere). Try the same object on different nights so you can see how it behaves on different seeing conditions. If you see them on a night where stars appear to twinkle then try them out again on a night with steadier atmospheric conditions.

[TheNorthernMonkey]

I saw the Ring nebula with a slightly greenish tinge, while using a 350 dob, at Kielder (a super dark site) but normally it looks like a grey smudge.

[Phil-lost!]

I was in the same boat as you, 8inch scope and not able to find anything and the book turn left at orion really helped me. my first dso was m13 and once i new what to expect everything seemed a lot easier!

[aurochs]

I was in the same boat as you, 8inch scope and not able to find anything and the book turn left at orion really helped me. my first dso was m13 and once i new what to expect everything seemed a lot easier!

I just got Turn Left at Orion today. I tried using it to find the Keystone stars, to find M13, but no luck I think my sky may have been to light at the time to make it out (or I was reading it wrong).

But I also got the Telrad finder today as well. That thing is amazing. It allowed me find Albireo tonight. I tried last with the standard finder but couldn't do it. Tonight I got it in the Telrad sights and bingo. It looked lovely, the orange and blue are clearly visible.Target acquisition is so fast and easy. It's like magic. This was the first time I have found and observed Albireo as well, so that's a good measure of how good it is I think. It took some time to set up and I was having issues with aligning it, but I learned that I still had to close one eye for it like everything else on the scope and it works like a charm.

I also found M57 with ease again, so it wasn't just a fluke.

[Nurse Roberts]

I got a sky atlas 2000.0. I take pics of the area I want to observe and then use my phone on its dimest light setting as a hand held guide which means I don't need to leave my eyepiece. I can't recommend it highly enough!