Starting out with a Skywatcher 150p dobsonian - part 2

[macdee]

As I bought the scope for my birthday, I also asked other to buy me things to go along with it I got a 32mm eyepiece and a 2 x Barlow plus a moon filter. The 32 mm eyepiece was a Skywatcher eyepiece from FLO and it has become the eyepiece I use the most when star hopping to find what I want to see. The barlow is useful for splitting binaries as you will see below

I also got Turn left at Orion and Sky and Telescopes Pocket Sky Atlas. The former is a good book to have and has helped me a lot to find interesting stuff to look at. One thing that I find a bit frustrating about it is that the big picture of where you are going to look only uses their pointer stars and not the other stars you are likely to see in the sky so I find myself not getting what they are saying and I have drawn in stars and the imaginary lines for how I see the constellations so it makes more sense. The book shows how things will look in an 8" dobsonian and a smaller scope with a star diagonal display, so it very useful in the former regard for me. The Sky Atlas has been less useful at the moment, but I think as I get more used to where things are in the sky, I think I will get more use from it.

One thing that bothered me when I was thinking about buying the scope was what I had read about collimation, did I need to buy a collimating eye piece? I took the risk and didn't purchase one. I then read about making your own with an old 35mm canister. As it turned out my scope hasn't needed to be adjusted in this way, but how do you know? To find out point your finder at a bright star and view it through the eye piece, defocus and you should see concentric rings of light around the centre where the star was, if you see that no need to collimate. Cool.

So over the next month I saw these objects:

02/09/2013
M39 Cyg    Open cluster        
M92 Her    Globular cluster    
M32 And    Galaxy

03/09/2013        
M103 Cas Open cluster

04/09/2013    
NGC6910 Open cluster rocking horse cluster, found when looking in the wrong place for M29 :-)

06/09/2013
Cass Eta Binary beta star red

07/09/2013
M29 Cyg    Open cluster    

16/09/2013

Spent whole session looking at moon, notes to follow can see craters to 14km in size with 10mm + barlow

21/09/2013
NGC7160    Cep Open cluster Smaller than I thought and difficult to see the 10th and 11th mag stars
HIP108917 Cep Binary    Saw this in passing to NGC7160, was able to split the double
HIP95947 Cyg Binary    Albireo
HIP91919 + HIP 91926 Lyr Binaries The double double, using 10mm can just see the splits, with barlow the split is more distinct, but blurry, 2.3" split about as much as the eyepieces I have will do
HIP84345 Her Binary Ras Algethi, red giant and partner (5.3), colours are good

22/09/2013
NGC7243    Lac Open cluster

That's it for part 2

[pmchugh1961]

Well done!

[cotterless45]

Well done , what a truly inspiring start,

Nick.

[dick_dangerous]

I need to bookmark these as potential targets come summer, and come some clear skies?! I too use a modified 35mm film canister for collimation. I'm quite fussy about it, but that's largely due to my 'scope being regularly bumped down the road to the park. At some point I'll add a Cheshire to my artillery. Don't know if it'll come up in later parts, but an 8mm EP is a wonderful addition to the arsenal - I have the BST Starguider one, and it's unbelievably superior to the supplied 10mm.

DD

[scarp15]

Excellent, Turn Left at Orion puts 'wind in your sail', I still occasionally enjoy referring to my copy,  you are truly using your scope to its potential.  The pocket Sky Atlas is a great investment to evolve into. I use the defocus star principle with my SCT with a high power plossl eyepiece. 

[macdee]

I need to bookmark these as potential targets come summer, and come some clear skies?! I too use a modified 35mm film canister for collimation. I'm quite fussy about it, but that's largely due to my 'scope being regularly bumped down the road to the park. At some point I'll add a Cheshire to my artillery. Don't know if it'll come up in later parts, but an 8mm EP is a wonderful addition to the arsenal - I have the BST Starguider one, and it's unbelievably superior to the supplied 10mm.

DD

I got a 8mm for Christmas, it hasn't had a lot of use yet and the one I bought doesn't have great eye relief, but it definitely does better than the 10mm as you suggest.

I was looking at my log and I've either missed a lot of observing opportunities lately or they haven't been there due to cloud cover, so I should wrap up my reports in a couple more posts.

[Sandraj]

Do keep the posts coming, I think its really good for the 150p to have its own thread where us newbies can refer to and get more insight, it helps a lot.

[mdstuart]

Really great thread. You are clearly enjoying your present.

Mars is good at the moment even in light polluted skies. You can see a few dark markings and just make out the polar cap..

Mark

Sent from my BlackBerry 9320 using Tapatalk

[happy-kat]

I knew when my 130 needed collimation because eye placement became very fussy and only part of the image was good viewing so I had to keep moving my eye before the scope needed a nudge.

[floppygoose]

Nice report, great to see you having success and nailing some good targets - look forward to the next one

Phil

[AndyWB]

04/09/2013    

NGC6910 Open cluster rocking horse cluster, found when looking in the wrong place for M29 :-)

Been there, done that!

Are you focussing on Open clusters and doubles due to light pollution?

[swamp thing]

Do keep the posts coming, I think its really good for the 150p to have its own thread where us newbies can refer to and get more insight, it helps a lot.

Totally agree. Having reports of this quality coming in will help many starting out.

[macdee]

Been there, done that!

Are you focussing on Open clusters and doubles due to light pollution?

Yes I thought it was quite funny when I found out what I'd done.

I'm not intentionally focusing on clusters and doubles, Turn Left at Orion has a big focus on multiple star systems and I sort of see the attraction as it is great fun when you can split those stars. As I am using that as one of my primary sources for targets I guess that is where that focus is coming from. For open clusters, I tend to look at them in stellarium and see if I think they are interesting enough to look at and then the challenge is actually finding them! I do suffer from light pollution and that makes galaxies hard to see, I've given up on seeing anything below a magnitude 10, but I am still finding my feet so it's possible I am doing something wrong with my galaxy hunting. Seeing M81 and M82 in the same field of view was fantastic and I learned to be patient with Andromeda to see more detail and the other galaxies in the region. but I have spent what seems like a long time searching for galaxies that I don't think I can see with this equipment and/or with my sky conditions. I do plan to haul the scope out to somewhere darker at some point and see if I can see more with it, I am sure I can.

My main purpose for these threads was to encourage others who are thinking about buying a similar scope to go for it, I couldn't really find a good list of targets that I would be able to see with a 6" from a light polluted town when I was trying to make the decision whether to buy or not, so I was hoping that given I can see these things other people would be able to do the same.

Sorry for the rambling reply, hope it makes some sort of sense and answers your question.

[macdee]

Really great thread. You are clearly enjoying your present.

Mars is good at the moment even in light polluted skies. You can see a few dark markings and just make out the polar cap..

Mark

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Thank you. I really am enjoying it.

I took a look on Friday as I can now see it over the top of my house, but the sky conditions weren't great and I didn't have much time so all I saw was some red fuzziness, will keep trying.