Perfect conditions for viewing deep space???

[NIGHTBOY]

Been out tonight and looked at Andromeda long before the moon started to come up. The conditions tonight are a little better than last as there are more stars about. I could see Andromeda about as well as I could as last night, a sort of faint white splodge. Are these the kind of results I can expect from my 200p dob or will it get better if conditions improve? I'm also wondering what are perfect sky conditions? (arart from the obvious 'be away from light pollution').

[Schorhr]

Transparency and low air turbulances (seeing), and the objects up close to zenith :-)

Andromeda is a little shapeless compared to other galaxies, but all of them benefit from good conditions and require longer observation.

To see a little detail on m51 I observerved for at least 40 minutes... So better get some warm clothes ;-)

[NIGHTBOY]

Check out this vid at 1.39. The guy says he's using a 8inch Newtonian. Is he for real???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMGZ5X0itt8

[Moonshane]

perfect conditions = new moon, clear skies and stable air. no LP.

his images seem to be achievable with an 8" scope. do you have doubts?

[NIGHTBOY]

I was hoping you'd say that!! I want nothing more than to see images like that, I've viewed Andromeda the past 2 nights and its looked NOTHING like that. If my scope can produce images as good as that then I'm a VERY happy bunny.

[Schorhr]

This is an image with longer exposure and probably many single shots stacked - the eye is more sensitive then most live camera sensors but can't do long exposures like that :-)

It will never look like this with your eyes, not even through larger telescopes.

But look at the prices of the HEQ-5 Mount - 500 to 800gbp depending on the motorization, tracking and such!

Serious imaging is expensive and takes up a lot of time for exposures and image processing.

Video astronomy is another way that works with smaller and cheaper (non-eq) mounts too, but the results are not as stunning as with a DSLR or dedicated deepsky camera sensor kit.

Don't let this discourage yourself- even visually many details are visible, but part of the fun is the challange to find a good spot, good conditions, and observe a object multiple times. Don't push it, and don't rush it - then you will see many details in deepsky objects.

With 8" visually there are quite some galaxies that will reveal their faint spiral structures.

[NIGHTBOY]

Ahh right so that's all done with cameras... Darn it.

[Naemeth]

Ahh right so that's all done with cameras... Darn it.

Unfortunately, yes . Mind you, I've seen the shape of the Ring Nebula and a little bit of faint colour before with my 10" dob (in heavy LP'd skies), so it is possible . It's not an ideal time of the month for deep sky viewing, so close to the Full Moon. While I've got the chance I'm brushing up on my knowledge of the night sky.

[Schorhr]

Search for astro drawings to get an idea of what to expect :-)

[NIGHTBOY]

I will do matey So what time of year is best for us in the UK then?? Still hyped about seeing Saturn, shame I've to to wait till next year tho!!

[AlexB67]

if you re up at around 4 AM or so views of Jupiter will be getting good by now with it getting higher in the sky, every bit as good as Saturn IMO   Also worth bearing in mind bright object like planets and the moon will look much more like the ones in images compared to faint object with low surface brightness like a DSO. On Saturn/Jupiter you'll get to see colour banding and so on, not on DSOs unless you own something very big in aperture, still, it will not be like what you see in those images in that video.

[wookie1965]

Ive been out with my 6 inch moon was up ive got LP but could see Andromeda had a brighter centre bulge but it was still a blurry blob.

[Qualia]

I could see Andromeda about as well as I could as last night, a sort of faint white splodge. Are these the kind of results I can expect from my 200p dob or will it get better if conditions improve? I'm also wondering what are perfect sky conditions? (arart from the obvious 'be away from light pollution').

It might be worth your time reading through this post I made last night. It's not a plug but more a helping hand .

Other than a dark site there are a few things you can keep in mind which may improve your observations:

• patience at the eyepiece.
• a comfortable chair.
• make sure the telescope is very well collimated.
• a minimum of 30 to 40 minutes of mirror cooling.
• wait to do the observation when the object in question is as high in the sky as it is likely to get.

Seeing is a tricky one to evaluate but I guess the worst thing for it is a poorly collimated scope which hasn't had time to cool. If you're viewing from a city or park like area you might find the buildings or tress messing up the air around your scope, for example, the heat rising off roof tops which will also affect seeing. Wind may not cause too much trouble so long as it's not blowing down or around your scope. Another trick is to watch the twinkling of stars which is caused by higher level turbulence. Scintillation is a good measure of the seeing conditions and although chronic for planetary viewing may not necessarily affect your viewing of galaxies and nebulae.

[acey]

For viewing galaxies the crucial things are sky darkness and transparency. No moon, no visible man-made lighting, no haze. The first and third are easy: pick the right times to observe. The second is a case of getting the best site you can reach with reasonable effort. If you can clearly see the Milky Way with some level of detail then you know you're at a dark place with no haze. (At my dark site I can easily see the Milky Way through thin cloud, but it shows no detail).

For faint fuzzies (as opposed to planets, double stars etc) I find that seeing (air turbulence) matters very little - in fact the poorest seeing often coincides with the best transparency, while a still, hazy night (problematic for deep sky) can be great for planetary viewing. I also don't worry myself too much about optical niceties such as collimation (though I do it every time), mirror cooling (though I'm always out long enough for it to cool) or baffling etc (my scope is baffled, but I'm sure that for a faint galaxy viewed at a dark site it makes no difference). You're looking for faint things at the limit of perception, usually viewing with averted vision, i.e. using rod rather than cone cells, so capturing photons matters more than resolution.

So the other crucial thing is dark adaptation. If you're in a place with a lot of ambient man-made light then your eye is only going to adapt to that level of brightness. What you want is for your eye to adapt to the level of the sky seen in the eyepiece. Even at a dark site I cup my hands around my eye to shield me from the surrounding light - at a light polluted site you'd need a hood over your head.

To keep my eye sufficiently dark-adapted while note-taking, I use a very faint, deep red light (a white one with a wine-red filter gel) - it still looks red when I'm dark adapted (not white or orange, as many "red" lights do), and when I look through the telescope I see no after image from the light on the page. In order that I can keep the light as faint as possible, I use a magnifying glass for map reading, and I put the thing I'm trying to read in the fainter part of the beam, not the bright middle.

Even with these measures, the faintest targets can take a while to come into view. So you need to be able to navigate to the exact target location (i.e. use a good map), and make use of techniques such as tube-tapping (because motion makes faint things more visible), or flicking the eye around the field of view (to try and utilise the most sensitive part of the retina).

Buit that's for the really faint stuff. For something like M31 you just need a dark place and a pair of binoculars.

[AndyWB]

I've seen Andromeda look similar to that once - minus the dust lanes, unfortunately - in my 5", under clear, dark skies out in the country, when I had had a couple of hours to adapt. Under light pollution in town, to me, it looks like a faint blob. Conditions appear to rule for faint things.

From what I've read, an 8" should be able to see at least one of the dust lanes, given dark sky and good conditions.

[acey]

Binoculars show the dark edge of the dust lane, and are probably the best way to see that particular feature. The dust lane wasn't obvious to 19th century visual observers and M31 wasn't definitely identifed as spiral until the advent of photography, unlike galaxies with far more obvious spiral or dust features such as M51, M33, M64, M99 etc.

[Astro Imp]

The first viewing I had of M31 I was very fortunate to have very good conditions and was absolutely wowed by the view.

Unfortunately I didn't realise (being a complete newbie)  that this was an exceptional night and thought I would always see it like this and didn't give it the time it deserved. I keep going back hoping for another night like that first viewing. 

The usual view I get is a grey smudge of varying size.

[NIGHTBOY]

I live right on the edge of Northampton so there is going to be LP of some sort. I work on a farm that's 10 miles outside Northampton, the nearest village to there is 5 miles away, it's also on top of a big hill. Hopefully that will be a 'Perfect' spot.