At last... clear sky but total failure...

[zoneca]

Tonight sky is clear. But all I could find was just M42 again. Trying to find M1, M43, M35, M36, M37, M38 & M78 but nothing popup... it was totally a failure. After 30 minutes, the sky was filled with smoke from nearby burned house. What a coincidence ruined my clear sky... (could it because somebody just bought new scope? Lol... neighbour topic). So sad.

[Stu]

M1 is pretty tricky and needs a dark sky

Maybe try M45 and what about the Double Cluster as being relatively easy ones to start with?

Is your finderscope properly aligned? That will help a lot.

Stu

[AndyWB]

M1 is pretty tricky and needs a dark sky

What he said. I spent hours looking for M1 before I twigged the 'Dark Skies' bit.

I found M36-38 quite tricky, until I'd found one of the clusters and figured out which one it was - which took a couple of nights. But then you can use one as an anchor to find the others fairly easily. I did find the whole 'Upside down' bit quite confusing, though.

[zoneca]

@stu: double clusters will be to far down to the horizon. From my backyard can only see 60° to zenith because of neighbour houses.

@big: I did see a group of stars. Could it be the cluster you mentioned?

[Stu]

Shame, can you take the scope somewhere with a clearer horizon? That will be quite limiting.

[Qualia]

Zoneca, I agree that stargazing can be cleary an exercise in frustration and I have found the following to be the best way to capture those DSOs.

i) Get yourself a decent star map. I find Star Atlas by Sky and Telescope indispensable. It's not that expensive, it's a piece of art in itself and it is extremely useful.

ii) It might not be necessary, but it could be an idea to upgrade to a bigger view finder. I have found that Skywatcher's 9x50mm is the business and it ought to be the right angled correct image one. I guess you have something like this already, but if not - the finderscope itself has a lovely white and black finish which will look the business on your own OTA. This 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.

iii) A Telrad or Rigel finder will be a big help. In non-LP areas, position the bullseye, or the other two rings in the proper place 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.

iv) Your low magnification EPs will be your workhorses for finding DSOs. The low mag EP should offer you sufficient sky to manage along with your star map and it will hopefully pick out or hint at what you're hunting. If you require something a bit longer, as already suggested in the EP thread, get yourself a 30mm +/- for around 50x mag.

v) Curiously, sketches are often overlooked, but they ought to be viewed from time to time. 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.

vi) Turn Left at Orion maybe 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). I never really bothered with the book but others swear by it. Conclusion, check it out.

vii) 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. Don't be down hearted, 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.

viii) There are some little tricks you can learn to find yourself about. For example, find the plough in Ursa Major and look for Merek and Dubhe, the distance and angle between these two is one step. Now count that distance, in that direction another 5 steps and bingo, you'll be with Polaris. Now go back to the Plough and find its end star, Alkaid. Take a jump and dive from her and the next brightest star will be Arcturus, and so on. Learning the big stars and diving quickly between them makes hunting stuff easier.

I hope that helps a little. Good luck, and clear skies

[Aronnax]

...

I found M36-38 quite tricky, until I'd found one of the clusters and figured out which one it was - which took a couple of nights. But then you can use one as an anchor to find the others fairly easily. ...

Indeed, the tricky bit is in working out which is which! M37 is probably the easiest as it is on it's own on one side of the imaginary line between Alnath and θ Aur, as well as being the brightest of the three open cluster Messiers in Auriga.

Next easiest is M38. Look for the 'Cheshire Cat' asterism (in the finder, you wont get it all in a telescope EP in general), and M38 is one corner of the smile. M38 also has a vague cross type arrangement of brighter stars in the cluster, which helps me identify it definitively.

M36 is the therefore the last of the three!

If you like open clusters, don't forget M35 just across the 'border' in Gemini too

Now, where are the clear skies?!?

[JonnyN]

Advice

Thats great advice! Going to use some of this myself

[Apollo Paul]

As alreay mentioned, recognising the bright stars and using them to star hop. I look for

targets by imaginary lines through visible stars, or distance from a visible star then sweep with a low mag eyepiece.

Prep work is done on stellarium, and may be using binoculars to find some targets

saving me wasted time searching for objects through the eyepiece.

If you havent downloaded stellarium you should.

Stellarium

[scarp15]

Plenty of sound advice, always a bit challenging when observing from home if living in a built up environment when there are lots of problematic factors to take into account. Certainly the open clusters can be rewarding to seek out from home based skies.

Take some time to simply relax - sit down and meditate for a while - study the sky to familiarise and orientate your senses. After which your eyes will be a bit more dark adapted to. Then begin your search.

[zoneca]

Thanks all for the advises. I already got stellarium. I think i'm gonna get telrad & 30mm ep even both are really hard to find in my country.

If I have goto scope does it mean I won't need any skill to search for the object?

If so, then what's the fun If we want to learn about the sky but with zero effort. One can only observe without a skill to track it down, right?

[Qualia]

I think i'm gonna get telrad & 30mm ep even both are really hard to find in my country.

Not sure if it helps for I know nothing about the Indonesian market, nor the possibility of buying gear that side of the world but when you get to 50 posts you can start looking at the classifieds here at SGL. From time to time you may come across stuff that peaks your interest. Other than that, ABS has a really decent secondhand market going on. Okay, most of the stuff is from the UK, but you could always work out postage costs etc with the potential seller etc. Finally, at the end of the day it may save you a lot of headache to purchase from FLO in the UK or somewhere like Astroshop or Teleskop in Germany.