Need some help identifying a few things

[Sam Baker]

As I tried my luck once again to look at jupiter I noticed three balls which may be moons. They were all at different distances around jupiter and quite large. Were they moons or some sort of dew on my EP. My Ep seemed pretty dry and I was able to locate then every time even with jupiter out of view but easily taken out of view with a small rotation of my RA adjuster. Also deciding to go deep space I moved my scope to the right (looking up) of jupiter to find a deep sky object of which was unknown to me. I was hoping to hit a star but this wasn't twinkling. Could I have found a galaxy? Or something else. This was at around 1:45am at 53 degrees latitude. If anyone out there knows I would greatly appreciate to know what I stunbled upon as I have only been doing this for 4 days.

Thanks alot

Sam

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[nmoushon]

Those were more than likely the moons of jupiter. Im not sure what you saw after that though. You could download the free program Stellarium and put in your location and time and it will show you what is there. Might be easier for you to try and figure it out on that then try to describe it on here. Though someone might know what it is. 

[Steve Ward]

Highly recommend Stellarium as advised , find it here ... http://www.stellarium.org/

[ronin]

The bright bits will be the moons of Jupiter, one will likely have been behind Jupiter so why only 3 visible.

The DSO to the right - the best option looks like the Cone Nebula (NGC 2264).

Problem is the term "right" I am never sure if this is actually right or appeared to be right and owing to the assorted inversions could have been one of a few directions.

Jupiter is presently a bit to the left of the galactic plane and a few DSO's are located in that.

Tne Cone is the biggest and brightest, also NGC 2169 and NGC 2244 are possible candidates but they are smaller and dimmer.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I doubt it was the Cone. The Cone is not an easy target, it sounds like a planetary nebula more than a diffuse one. The description of the moons almost suggests the focus was slightly off, as they do not look very large in my C8

[Sam Baker]

Yeah I'm struggling to get good focus which is probably why they look so big as well. I'll Google it. By to the right I mean south east ish

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[Sam Baker]

Also it was a random target I went the wrong way with my scope. I can't give coordinates as it wasn't lined up properly. It was a large looking feature. It was slighlty out of focus and was similar size to one of jupiters moons. Just brighter but not as bright as jupiter and it was a solid light rather than twinkling is that a better explanation?

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[nmoushon]

Might be the eskimo plantery nebula...but not sure...I would think that would be kind of dim

[cantab]

Assuming you don't have a massive scope, Jupiters moon's should be points. If they aren't then you're not in focus. Right now Jupiter is close to the star Delta Gemini, they'll be in the same field of view at about 75x or less. If you didn't move the scope much, that's my guess as to your suspected DSO.

If you moved the scope a fair bit to the west (right as you look at the real sky), and were using low power, then I'd suggest M35. Medium power ought to resolve that as stars though, but maybe not if you weren't in focus. A similar distance to the east (right through an inverted eyepiece view) is the Pleaides, but I really doubt that would look like your description even out of focus.

[Sam Baker]

I was using high power. Barlow 3x and 8mm EP so I didn't manage to get a long enough view or even find it again as I didn't know where I was looking. It was a bit of stressful moment really as I wanted to cast my eyes on it one more time

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[Sam Baker]

And scope 5" x 1000mm focal length

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[Astralstroll]

Somebody in a different thread said the Eskimo nebula was near to Jupiter around now. Might have been that. The three balls were most likely three of the four Galilean satellites or moons.