Help navigating..please

[DonRemus]

Hi, had my scope a few weeks. Managed to find Jupiter, M42, Betelgeuse, M31, M45.

I went out last night looking for M36, M37 and M38. Swept around Auriga for ages with the finder with no luck. Did some sweeping with 25mm eyepiece and I found one of them but have no idea which as by the time I found it I was completely lost apart from the fact I could tell I was pointing at the Auriga constellation.

I seem to have reached a glass ceiling, done all the easier targets (even sketched some). M31 was a 'sweeping' find in the general area I knew it would be, not a lot of skill involved. I think my brain is still confused by the inverted (and mirrored?) view through the eyepiece but you still have to move the scope in the natural eye view direction.

Turn Left at Orion on order, hoping that will help a bit.

Any advice welcome

[DonRemus]

Found some nice printable star charts for Messier here http://freestarcharts.com/index.php/messier-catalogue

Looking at them has given me renewed confidence I will find what I am looking for and know what I am looking at

[Scooot]

A Telrad or something similar might help. It will give you an idea of where your scopes pointing in relation to everything else.

[brantuk]

If you find a brighter constellation star near your object - charts (or Stellarium/Cartes du Ciel ) will show an easily memorable pattern of dimmer stars that you can "star hop" to your object. I find 3 or 4 is usually enough for most objects. But it usually depends on a knowledge of the constellations main star names which you will acquire over time.

[jollyjack]

I would use binoculars in conjunction with your 'scope. There are many, many objects that are easily identifiable in bins. Searching them out in this way gives you some experience in a particular part of the sky which you can then relate to what you can see naked eye, through a finderscope, RDF, Telrad or whatever. I tend to use Stellarium to "rehearse" what I'm going to do, narrowing the FOV down to what I know my bins, finderscope and say 25mm EP will show to identify what features I'm looking for in each of them respectively to put me on my target.

[DonRemus]

Good advice as always thanks. Now have Turn Left at Orion too which looks awesome. Now for clear skies...

[lensman57]

Hi, had my scope a few weeks. Managed to find Jupiter, M42, Betelgeuse, M31, M45.

I went out last night looking for M36, M37 and M38. Swept around Auriga for ages with the finder with no luck. Did some sweeping with 25mm eyepiece and I found one of them but have no idea which as by the time I found it I was completely lost apart from the fact I could tell I was pointing at the Auriga constellation.

I seem to have reached a glass ceiling, done all the easier targets (even sketched some). M31 was a 'sweeping' find in the general area I knew it would be, not a lot of skill involved. I think my brain is still confused by the inverted (and mirrored?) view through the eyepiece but you still have to move the scope in the natural eye view direction.

Turn Left at Orion on order, hoping that will help a bit.

Any advice welcome

Hi Gary,

You need to learn to use the stars to get to the destination and for that you need a good star chart, clear skies and knowing how to use your setting circles would also help, once in the vecinity then change to a wide field eyepiece to locate the objects. For really dim DSOs you really need a very dark sky though. Plan your session before starting, it makes it a lot easier.

Good luck.

A.G

[bingevader]

Don't be disheartened, there was too much moon the other night and I gave up quite quickly looking for DSOs and concentrated on that instead!

Can I recommend "Turn Left at Orion"?

An excellent book with good star-hopping advice, descriptions and diagrams of what you are likely to be able to see.

The three open clusters you mention are on page 42!

They happen to be 3 of my favourites too.

Cheers

[DonRemus]

Good advice as always thanks. Now have Turn Left at Orion too which looks awesome. Now for clear skies...

Don't be disheartened, there was too much moon the other night and I gave up quite quickly looking for DSOs and concentrated on that instead!

Can I recommend "Turn Left at Orion"?

An excellent book with good star-hopping advice, descriptions and diagrams of what you are likely to be able to see.

The three open clusters you mention are on page 42!

They happen to be 3 of my favourites too.

Cheers

Thanks folks. Now have TLAO - well impressed! Just so happened UHC and LP filters appeared in classified and looks like I'm first responder so buying those too.

Gary

[CJE]

TLAO has helped me out no end, fantastic purchase.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[DonRemus]

Session last night determined to find the Auriga clusters. Started at El Nath and moved north and east using my lowest pwer ep (30x). TLAO guides the way using a finder but mine is not good enough or the seeing was bad. I eventually (after many returns to the El Nath start point) found a faint cluster in my ep and confirmed M36 by some surrounding star reference points in TLAO. Maybe the seeing was bad but was a little disappointed, couldn't see enough detail for a sketch.

Had a quick look for M37 and M38 but was mighty cold by then so called it a night.

Finding the non obvious targets is proving a lot more difficult than I thought and these are supposed to be easy! Still, I am getting more used to moving the scope around in the right directions so making progress.

Gary