Two nights of observing later...

[MrPloppy]

Well, I've had two nights of observing so far with my Explorer 200p EQ5. Its amazing what you can see, but the big thing I've learnt is to lower the expectations of family members who want to take a look. They tend to expect Hubble-type images, and they're disappointed in what they see (any hints and tips on this?)

I've not fully set the mount up each time. I've just pointed it roughly north, and set the latitude to where I live - I've not pointed the mount yet at Polaris - it still seems adequate for my visual observations, and the RA fine tune works flawlessly.

I've seen a few things - M31 Andromeda which seemed to my eyes to be just a slight smudge in the sky. I live in a very light polluted area, so I know I'm not meant to see much. But I have seen it, and I could make out its shape, but none of the detail. I had a good look at M45 - Pleiades, and that was spectacular in my 25mm wide angle EP.

Finally, I've seen Jupiter and the four visible moons. That in itself was worth the price of the scope. I could make out 2 bands on Jupiter, and did I see the red spot? Maybe - not sure. But truly amazing.

In all, I think I'm hooked. I've seen that the Sky at Night are having their "Moore's Marathon", so I'm going to have a good go at doing those....

... once the skies clear, of course! :-/

Just thought I'd write a little bit about my experience so far - not really a question here, but any thoughts and tips of what to look at or to do would be most welcome. I must say that the "star hopping" technique of finding stuff is immensely difficult!

Thanks,

MrP.

[Damo636]

Nice write up Mr P :-)

One piece of advise I would give is to get yourself either a Telrad finder or a Rigel Quikfinder (assuming you don't already have one). Either will make for much easier star hopping. A good book such as Turn Left at Orion would be another worthwhile addition or an atlas such as Sky & Telescopes Pocket Atlas. The latter only costs arould £10 & is excellent.

[Qualia]

Lovely write-up, Mr. Ploppy.

I'm not too sure what advice to give for making the other members of your family rise to the same enthusiasm as yourself. I guess it's a personal thing.

Of other tips, I have found the following to be useful:

Get yourself Star Atlas by Sky and Telescope. It's not that expensive, it's a piece of art in itself and it is extremely useful.

A nice big finderscope, a 9x50 which ought to be a right angled correct image one is a very useful tool - especially in LP areas. The finderscope I have is by Skywatcher and delivers to you stars right down to about magnitude 8, even if you're in a LP area, meaning you’ll be able to see every star plotted on the Sky Atlas and when you move amongst those stars, your left is left and your up is up.

Telrads are also very useful. Position the bullseye against the stars and you’re more or less done. If you're out a little you can work out where you are by the three ringed cirlces giving you varying degrees of the sky you're looking at. You can make a plastic Telrad overlay for the Star Atlas or just print one of the free Telrad maps on the net. The only negative point about the Telrad is that it can’t deliver more stars than your eyes alone can see, so if you're in an LP area, they really do speed up your finding, really do help to judge where you are, but it must be used in conjunction with the findercope.

Low magnification EPs are excellent for clusters etc but also very useful for star-hopping. It'll offer sufficient sky to manage along with your star map and it will hopefully pick out or hint at what you're hunting.

Make sure you're aware of what you're looking for. NASA photos or those produced here are not going to help you. You need to check out the sketches. These are generally produced by patient observers who are trying their best to get the EP image just-right, so the little drawings should give you a very good idea of what the DSO being hunted will more or less look like.

Turn Left at Orion is a book which is well worth your time. It'll explain what are some of the more important objects worth going for in a particular season. It'll explain how you get there (it more or less assumes you're in a dark area, so if not, keep your wits about you). It explains how you move your non-correct image finderscope to star-hop to the given dso (again, if you've got a correct image finderscope keep alert) and it offers a little 'positive' sketch of what the thing looks like in a normal scope (I imagine anything between a 4" decent refractor to an 8" newtonian).

Finally, if you can master patience you'll be a master of yourself and the night sky will be a good teacher. She'll teach patience and careful watchfulness; she'll teach industry and care and above all the night sky teaches entire trust. Those stars and DSOs are not going anywhere quick, they won't desert you and they're not playing about. So, if you don't succeed one night, no worries, you've probably already discovered something new about yourself, your equipment, the sky, and those stars and DSOs will be back to give you another chance tomorrow.

Good luck, and clear skies

[webboid]

Nice report

I too have the same scope as yours. With light pollution limiting my naked eye magnitude to about 4 to 4.5 I went for a red dot finder which was really helpful to find a bright star to start from. A telrad is better at a dark site IMO. I then use the finderscope plus star atlas to hop to the desired target.

Since May this year, when I got my scope, I have observed well over 50 DSO's & would recommend trying for some globulars, before they disappear for the winter. M13, M15, M2 are fairly close to bright stars to navigate from. With your scope you should be able to resolve some of the stars in these & your family should be impressed. Other objects of note would be ring nebular, double cluster, dumbbell nebular (slightly harder to find). The owl cluster NGC 457 is a nice asterism. Also double stars Albireo in Cygnus & Almaak in Andromeda are very nice.

Happy hunting

Paul

[onesmallstep]

Hi and welcome to SGL

Taking the scope to a dark sky site well away from light pollution will make a significant improvement both in quantity and quality of targets. There's a similar thread elsewhere in this section that deals with dark skies and the viewing experience.

Secondly, managing expectations and dealing with the 'is that it???!!!' response. One of the appeals of observing is that you're looking at an object in 'real time' as it were. The light that left the object x lightyears ago are just reaching your eye as you observe and that realisation provides an extra albeit psychological dimension to the session. Anyone can find excellent, visually-stunning, full colour detailed images in magazines, books and on the internet but looking at Saturn through the eyepiece is active astronomy and the real deal.

[Velvet]

Welcome and enjoyed reading your report. As for family members I have the same problem.

They think cos its a telescope you will be able to see the images off the internet.

Everyone is the same I'm afraid.

velvet

[NigelCampbell]

Welcome, here's my advice for engaging other people and managing their expectations. Have a few key facts at your fingertips.

Tell them that Andromeda is 2.5 million light years from Earth ( so they are looking two and a half million years into the past ) Tell them that at some point in the far distant future it will crash into the Milky Way.

Tell them that you can fit 1,000 Earths into the size of Jupiter. That the Great Red Spot is a storm that has been raging since it was first observed in the 17th century.

Failing that show them Saturn - everyone loves Saturn! Albireo is another good target to show novices, stars that are red and blue rather than just white are good. You can point out the white star with the naked eye before scoping it to show the double star. Ask them to guess which is hotter, the red or the blue one (blue!)

Once you've done that they will either be hooked, or at the very least realise that you are and let you get on with it ;-)

[Stargazer33]

Welcome to SGL Mr.P!

This hobby really grabs you by the throat doesn't it!

I always love looking at M13 - globular cluster in Hercules. Get it in a low power ep and then go for something around a 10mm - real WOW factor - your family may even be impressed when going from one view to the other!

I also love looking at the Ring Nebula (M57) in Lyra and the Dumbell Nebula (M27) half way between Sigitta and Vulpecula.

[rwilkey]

Hi Mr Ploppy, pointing north is good enough for visual, only photographers need to polar align, otherwise you are fine with what you are doing. I advise a RACI finder as well, that is what I use with both my scopes, a telrad will mean you still have to bend your head along the axis if the OTA, but the right-angled one eliminates the need for this. There's a good one going cheap on Ebay at the moment, it's the Orion one which I can thoroughly recommend: http://www.ebay.co.u...984.m1423.l2649

[Astro Imp]

Nice one MrP.

Youv'e got plenty to look forward to and have been given great advice here. Personally when I started the two best buys I made were a Telrad finder and Turn Left at Orion.

The astro. mags. all give viewing guides tailored to the current month, also a good source of what is viewable is to read the reports in the observing forums of SGL.

A must have is a copy of http://www.stellarium.org/ which is a free planatarium program.

Clear skies and enjoy.

[PorkyB]

Star hopping is not that hard once you get used to it, it's not always easy but it's not too hard. I have the same scope as you and use both a Rigel to get me started, and a right-angle finderscope (RACI) for more accurate location, I use a 6x30 which i find gives useful magnification and light-gathering but you could go for a 9x50 if you wanted to. I much prefer a right-angle over a straight-through finder as it save me doing some strange contortions.

The biggest challenge is working out which way is up compared to the atlas I am using. If your alignment is anything like right, your RA and DEC controls will move you along the grid lines on your map, so wiggle them around until you work out which way things are moving, then turn your map round to match. Once you have done that it gets much easier to find your way around. It's important to make sure you start in the right place, many hours have been lost by getting this bit wrong.

So if you wanted to find the Dumbbell Nebula, start at Albireo. You will know from the colours that you are in the right place. Then down (DEC) to Alpha-Vulpecula, left (RA) to the next bright star, then diagonally down and left one finderscope's width and there it is ... all pretty and "dumbelly" (or maybe a grey smudge depending on the viewing conditions). Just be aware that in the scope's eyepiece, unlike the RACI, everything appears to move in the wrong direction.

As for engaging with others, you really never know. i showed two young people Jupiter the other day. One excitedly told me how many moons she could see, and the bands and said it was beautiful. The other looked for two seconds and said, "yeah" before walking off.

[MrPloppy]

Wow - thanks everyone for the replies! I wasn't expecting much based on the fact I was just telling all what I'd been up to!

I certainly will get a telrad - something I've seen mentioned, but didn't know anything about. After reading all the replies on this page, I looked it up, and can now see how useful they are. I've seen some for about £35 so won't break the bank. I see also there are plenty of suggestions for "Turn Left at Orion". I've known about this book, and I've stayed away, mainly because of the fact I have Stellarium, I have Google Sky Map on my phone as well as a few other apps so I didn't think it worth it. What do you think? Despite me having all these apps, is the book still worth it?

The RACI seems to be a little more expensive - so I'll leave that for now. I think what I need to know is the basics - how to find stuff in the sky. I'm going to follow the Moore's Marathon suggestions, which seems like a good start.

Thanks for the suggestions about family members' apathy when they've seen the images through the scope - I've not really had chance to show it to the kids yet, but when I showed Jupiter to my dad, he just said "Hmmm - not really *detailed* is it?", and that was that. £425 down the drain according to him! (I'm actually glad he lives 300 miles away, and is only here for a short visit! :-) )

Many thanks again to those who have replied to this thread - especially Qualia who could perhaps write a book on the issues I've raised! :-D

(...I think it may be clear skies again tonight! )

MrP.

[lestergibson]

Thanks for the suggestions about family members' apathy when they've seen the images through the scope - I've not really had chance to show it to the kids yet, but when I showed Jupiter to my dad, he just said "Hmmm - not really *detailed* is it?", and that was that. £425 down the drain according to him! (I'm actually glad he lives 300 miles away, and is only here for a short visit! :-) )

Did he know that he was looking at an object thats 500 million miles away? Sounds like a typical case of Hubble-washing, I think. More time on the EP for you then:)

[cyborg421]

The fact that they don't look like Hubble doesn't make them any less amazing. You know what they are and can observe them to the best of your ability. I have a 250px now but I started off with a Tasco refractor and was thrilled with what I saw through that. Enjoy your hobby and encourage those who are also interested.

Simob

[jnb]

Managing expectations whenever anyone doesn't have a great deal of knowledge about a subject is almost impossible. Astronomers might be enthused about the Andromeda spiral 3 million light years away engaged in a gravitational dance with our own galaxy which is doomed to end in a fatal embrace but that's knowledge you carry with you to the telescope. To anyone else who approaches the eyepiece without that knowledge it's a fuzzy blob and in a very real sense they're right. You can of course give them a running commentary on what it is they are looking at but if they're not intellectually inclined and inclined to find this particular subject interesting then it will remain forever 'just a fuzzy blob'.

[lestergibson]

The fact that they don't look like Hubble doesn't make them any less amazing. You know what they are and can observe them to the best of your ability. I have a 250px now but I started off with a Tasco refractor and was thrilled with what I saw through that. Enjoy your hobby and encourage those who are also interested.

Simob

You're right; it doesn't make them any less amazing. But then again, we are all enthusiasts here. Your average joe, who doesn't know what it takes to get those Hubble images and who doesn't have the interest is, by and large, not going to be terribly impressed by a grey smudge, no matter what sort of numbers you quote. Me? I saw Andromeda (or at least, a bit of it) the other night for the first time through my 200p Dob and, grey smudge or not, I was blown away.

[glowjet]

Very nice Mr P, you also have some excellent recommendations, I would add yet another. Small Grey smudges is what you often see with DSO. There is a nice paperback book,of some 170pp, "Observing the Deep Sky" by Darren Bushnall, this will set you back the the princely sum of 10P plus postage from Amazon outlets, describes DSO and what you see in the form of sketches, shows you how to produce them as well, worth every penny IMHO

John..

[HIP3802]

A good write-up ther, Mr. P! As to how to limit expectations, I have done this in two ways when others (especially teenagers) have used the scope. In the first place I have written out a quick 'distance guide' of things seen after a viewing - the sheer distance of many of the objects has often impressed. Secondly, as others have mentioned, I have shown sketches of the objects. One very good site for this is: http://www.deepskywatch.com/deepsky-sketches.html

Best of luck with further viewings - it only gets better as the winter skies come on.

Martin.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

I showed my sister andromeda 2 nights ago, and she was actually quite impressed. She said on a non work night ill have to find Saturn for her, she was dissapointed when i said it would be a long time before thats back in view, she doesnt care about Jupiter lol.

I think family members are dissapointed as like you say, they expect bright nebulas all colours of the rainbow, where as, as its our interest, we know that all we will see is the grey stuff. Although in my minds eye, i see the nebulas like in hubble