Lost the touch?

[JamesOfThinking]

Hello all,

Hope you are all having these awesome clear skies over the last few nights! I've had the scope out after nearly two months (constant cloud plus busy times) Three nights, despite my best efforts over three clear nights I'v had very little luck... I've previous had nights spotting many a deep sky object; ring neb, double cluster, Behive, M5, M53, Wild Duck, Eagle Neb etc. But three nights and nothing, I'm using starmap pro on my phone but I just don't know what's going wrong? I am seeing blankets of visable stars and some clusters but that's the best of it.

Just wondered if anyone had any ideas? I am yet to collimate the scope... could this be a significant issue? Out of practice - I'm doing everything the same?

I am using a Skywatcher 200p dob + 40mm 5mm possls plus the supplied eyepieces + a barlow and sky glow filter.

I am also looking for a more 'portable' scope to take out on foot/train... anyone got/recommend the Skywatcher Flextube 130p dob?

Cheers all! James

[Qualia]

I'm not sure, James. Perhaps the seeing or transparency wasn't up too much but not knowing the local conditions I can't vouch for that. It would be more than worth your while to check out collimation and ought to be something you look at every time you use your scope until it becomes second nature. Other than that, here are some general tips:

i) Star Atlas: get yourself a decent star map. I find Star Atlas by Sky and Telescope or the Cambridge Double Star Atlas indispensable. They're not that expensive, they're works of art in themselves and they are extremely useful.

ii) Viewfinder: a 9x50mm, right angled correct image viewfinder is the business. This delivers stars right down to about 8 magnitude, 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) Red-Dot Finder: either a Telrad or Rigel finder will be a big help. These can’t deliver more stars than your eyes alone can see, so if you're in an LP area, you're relatively limited. But, they really do speed up your finding, really do help judge where you are, but it must be used in conjunction with the findercope. Whether in decent dark skies or a light soaked LP area, one positions the bullseye or the other two rings in the proper place against the stars and you’re done. If you're out a little you can work out where you are by either looking through your viewfinder or the three ringed cirlces of the red-dot finder giving you varying degrees of the sky you're looking at. If it helps, you can make a plastic red-dot finder overlay for the Star Atlas or just print one of the free Telrad maps on the net.

iv) Long Focal Length EP: A long focal length, low magnification EP will be your star-hopping workhorse. The low mag EP should offer you sufficient sky to manage along with your star map and red-dot finder and ought to be able to pick out or hint at what you're hunting. I use an EP which offers about 1º true field, others may prefer a little wider.

v) Sketches: sketches are too often overlooked, but they ought to be viewed from time to time. These are generally produced by patient observers who are trying to get the visual image right, so the little drawings should give you a very good idea of what the DSO being hunted out will more or less look like.

vi) Books: there are so many books about it's hard to pick out any one of them and say, this is the best. There are those which give context and depth to what is being viewed, others a more practical working guide. On the latter front, many folk recommend, Turn Left at Orion. I never really bothered with it but others swear by it. Never underestimate the power of SGL as well.

vii) Jumping Tricks: there are some little tricks you can learn to find yourself about the night sky. 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. This summer learn the famous triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair.

viii) Participation in the Virtues: if you can master patience you'll be a master of yourself and the night sky is a good teacher. She'll teach patience and careful watchfulness; she'll teach industry and care and above all the night sky teaches trust. Those stars and DSOs are not going anywhere quick. They won't desert you and they're not trying to deceive you. If you don't succeed one night, no worries. Don't be down hearted, you've probably already discovered something new about yourself, or perhaps your equipment, or the sky itself. And those stars and DSOs will be back to give you another chance, another day.

ix) Don't fight the clouds: stargazing can be a tiresome road and one can suffer for it and be grieved, but the worst we can do is add to this frustration and hit out and curse those things beyond our control. Cloudy, uneventful evenings are just that, nothing more and when we are older they will appear to us as a singular, non-descript event, yet shining from them like a host of gleaming stars will be those evenings where everything just seemed perfect and the universe at last could murmur to us its secrets.

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

[NGC 1502]

Hi James, I've been out for the last 3 nights too, one of them to my clubs dark site.

Here's what works for me. I have a simple red dot finder on my Dob and make sure it's accurately aligned. I use a 33mm Swan eyepiece in the focuser, gives a 2 degree field to find my chosen object. I use Sky Atlas 2000 and S&T pocket sky atlas. By noting where my object is relative to naked eye stars, I can usually find what I'm after quickly. Not 100%, but high chance of success, and with most of the popular objects it is 100%.

As I said, that works for me, but I do understand not for everyone.

As you have had previous success, not sure why you have problems now. Have you checked the finder is still aligned ? That would be my first check. If your collimation is off, you should still see the object, but not at its best. When looking for a faint object, make sure you have focus, you can focus on any star before the hunt. It's tough to focus properly on a fuzzy patch, but easy on a star.

Your 200 Dob is a very portable scope, but not on foot for a distance or on a train etc. The Flextube 130 is very portable, but if you mean the 'Heritage' scope, the mount is very low, so you will need to carry something to stand it on, unless there is something at your observing spot to serve that purpose.

Hope that helps at least a bit, Ed.

[JamesOfThinking]

Thank you both for taking the time to advise and help me out! I really appeciate it. For starters I have just re-aligned and perfected (hopfully) the finder scope.

When I get hold of some cash I will be looking to obtain a Cheshire Collimator, some new eyepieces and maybe a Telrad plus some maps and such. I have Stargazing for dummys as well as Left Turn at Orion (Thanks to a top chap off the lounge).

I am still pretty new to the game, I had a 4" mini dob for a year and then only recently picked up the 200p.

Tonight is clear once more by the looks of things (we're getting spoilt!) so I will hopfully see if this adjustment has worked. Fingers crossed.

Thanks again

[JamesOfThinking]

Quick update for you guys; I set up the finder scope from scratch when I got home today, just been out to test it on a couple of stars and it's much better. Hopfully this solves the issue altogether!

Will keep you updated.

Cheers, James

[cotterless45]

Try a 90/102 refractor in high summer. It gives plenty contrast in lighter skies and helps in light pollution. Saturn has been wonderful lately. I use the light bucket in darker and

clear skies,

Nick.

[AndyWB]

The Flextube 130 is very portable, but if you mean the 'Heritage' scope, the mount is very low, so you will need to carry something to stand it on...

Or a chair to sit next to it on - that works for me. 'Course that means carrying a chair...

[Schorhr]

The heritage 130p is a great portable telescope. Like Andy, I'm using a tiny collapsible chair, and building a "backpack-box" type of thing to carry it and put on on top.

As you have a 40mm Plössl it will be a nice overview eyepiece when the red dot finder won't be enough.

A real good investment are wide angle eyepiece though. Nice views AND makes stuff easier to find compared to a narrow field of view.

The UWA/Erfle type have a 66 degree apparent field of view, cost only 30€ and while not perfect at f/5 they do their job.

For high magnification I can sometimes use a 2.5mm hr-planetary. If the conditions are right, Saturn looks stunning. But the Plössl or a 6mm uwa plus barlow will probably do. From my experience though Plössl under six millimeter are not very comfortable to look through... plus at that magnification objects very quickly run out of the view ;-)

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Or a chair to sit next to it on - that works for me. 'Course that means carrying a chair...

But hey, if the train is busy, you have your own chair to sit on!

[Schorhr]

The tripod-stool I have is made from aluminum and weighst 400g I think, and folds into a compact bar with a carry-strap ;-)

The Transportation-frame-backpack-thingy I have weighs a bit more, but once you've done carrying or rolling the h130p around, it will assemble/fold into a chair as well :-)