Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing

[ramstar]

Tonight was my 4th ever evening watching - so far I've been spending most of it looking up at Jupiter & a brief glance at the moon when it decided to put in an appearance. For a change I thought I'd move around a bit and went searching for Orion nebula. Am I right in thinking it was the wispy area which has a central cluster of 4 stars in the shape of a diamond or am I way off beam again?

[Ulysses]

Hi, that's the Trapezium. It's right in the heart of the nebula. Paul

[Uranium235]

Yep youre in the right place, those four stars are called the trapezium. M42 is quite a big thing so you might want to pop in a lower power EP (depending on your FL in the firsrt place), then spend a bit of time on it. I had the bins on it earlier while imaging, and its always a nice view

[steveb1977]

Yes that is the Orion Nebula, can be seen with the naked eye as well even from poor skies.

[ramstar]

Hooray - got one right at last! What's the similar cloudy area to the right of Jupiter at roughly the same level? Used a Telrad for the 1st time tonight - so much easier than trying to find something through the finderscope!

[jabberwocky]

That's M45 the Pleiades, open cluster. Great through binos. The stars that make it up are passing through dust and illuminate it which looks great through a scope.

[ramstar]

Would the investment in something like a Baader O111 filter really make that much difference when viewing nebulae? It seems a lot of money but it's worth it I suppose if the difference is obvious

[Steep]

I used my O-III filter for the first time last night on Orion, the difference with and without was very marked. Orion seemed to spread wider and stand out more sharply with it. Unfortunately heavy cloud scudding about everywhere else meant I couldn't try it on another Nebula but that will come. As for is it worth it, I don't know yet, it certainly makes a difference and with care will last a lifetime. I chose the Televue Bandmate 2" because it got good reviews, when it arrived I thought "I spent how much? on that tiny thing?" well at least I got a free bag of sweets! One thing that makes me nervous is having to change it in the dark, with cold or gloved fumbling fingers I can see me dropping it at some point. If you don't remove it you get some very unique views of Jupiter