Orion Nebula

[georgemoss]

What is required to see the Orion Nebula?  I have tried binoculars and a 4" telescope.  Found lots of stars in the sword, but no fuzzy looking items.

[Uhwaz]

Bins should be enough unless you have a lot of LP

[timetraveler3]

If you are looking at the right spot you should see it. It is the middle star in the sword (not the belt) Even with binocs you can tell it is a fuzzy cloud, not a star. I have a 4.5 inch telescope and the Orion nebula looks pretty cool in it at about 10X eyepiece. It is a greyish cloud with several bright stars in the middle of it.  Orion is getting ready to go away for spring so check it out again soon!  Don't give up you will get it.

[Andy Milner]

I am using a 8" scope. I managed to get a great view of it with a 5mm piece as it filled my whole eyepiece view. It was tricky to keep it in view with the dual motors but well worth it. I used a zoom eye piece 24mm-8mm to assist me in gradually getting it dead centre then swapped for the 5mm. For your 4" scope it is visible but you may find that as it's very low in the sky at this time of year it will get harder to view through all the light and atmosphere. A clear night is needed to see it.

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[CodnorPaul]

Bins should easily see it - although it can be hard to align on it so perhaps you are just out.  From a dark site it is naked eye.

[Langy]

Yes I find and view it easily enough with 10x50 bins.

[georgemoss]

Thanks to all.  I'll give it another go, if we ever get a clear night!

[C7tsj]

I use an inferior 114mm scope and it still really jumps out. You should be fine, just a little perseverance.

[hobsey]

I can see it with my 10x50 bins so you should be fine with your bins and 4" scope.

Just double check you are looking in the right place

[Astro Imp]

I use 8x42 bins and with moderate light polution it leaps out.

Good luck.

[iksobarg]

I just found this really well done vid on Orion. Enjoy

[ollypenrice]

The answer to your question is simple. You need a dark site and then you'll see it naked eye, even with terrible eyesight like mine. It really is that simple.

Olly

[JimmyC]

As above. Even a pair of 10 x 25's give it some authority. I use Nikon 10 x 25's, and they're great on the better known clusters, but they do the Orion Nebula, M42, very well. They really make you feel that it is there for real....If that makes sense.... Andromeda looked good a few months back but back then i wasn't quite the enthusiast i am now - Back in Jan, if it was a clear night, i would only target M31, Andromeda, and the Pleiades as that's all i could remember after 6-7 years out of stargazing. Stick with the Binoculars! They show you very much more than your eyes could ever see, yet with the binoculars up to your eyes, it's as if you're seeing it all with your own

[LukeSkywatcher]

Sorry to be flippant, but M42 is a naked eye object from my garden (20km south of Dublin city).

[Qualia]

What is required to see the Orion Nebula?  I have tried binoculars and a 4" telescope.  Found lots of stars in the sword, but no fuzzy looking items.

Not in the particular, for you probably have enough advice given above but in the general here is some advice you may find useful when hunting out DSOs:

Gear & Stuff

i) Stellarium: download this free software. It is extremely useful for planning sessions, seeing what is about, learning about constellation and planetary motion through time and much more.

iI) Star Atlas: 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.

iiI) 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.

iv) 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.

v) 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. Your own 25mm should be more than sufficient for the job.

vi) 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) SGL & 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 but others swear by it. The power of SGL goes without saying.

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.

A Little Guide

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

[Johnnyaardvark]

All good advice above. I would only like to add that using averted vision may also bring out a little more detail but M42 should be pretty clear without.

Happy hunting. Here's to better weather.

Steve

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[Pig]

Your probably looking at M43, move down and to the right a tad

[Owmuchonomy]

Anything from your own eyes to a big scope. There is so much to see with this object. Somebody above mentioned sketches. I would echo that and urge you to buy the book Turn Left at Orion. This book lets you check what you will actually see at various FOVs.

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[Carina Lass]

Naked eye object for me - but do it soon if you want to see it before October - it's getting low and  less obvious