Am I expecting too much...? Frustration setting in

[Johnny666666]

Hi to everyone

Frustration is beginning to set in. I have a SW 150P on EQ3.2 mount, with polarscope and RA and Dec drives as I wanted to start off with a set up that I wouldn't outgrow too quickly. I am happy with the set up so far and have captured some encouraging first images. However, I am not managing to locate what many more experienced astronomers term as 'easy' targets. Yes - the planets are obvious. Pleiades was also an easy to spot early target because I could see it with the naked eye.

Tonight after a few shots of Mars and Jupiter I looked on Stellarium and decided to source m3 as it was well within my field of view and I've seen the term 'easy' used on here a number of times. Nothing. Couldn't see it, locate it with binoculars or scope, despite resorting to literally slowly cross-scanning that whole area inch by inch using the fine adjustment controls. So I decided instead to look for Praesepe, again after consulting Stellarium. Straight to it with the binoculars, swung the scope towards it and immediately located it bang central in the finderscope. This is not the first time I have had this issue, I've spent many a frustrating few hours looking for objects that 'should' be there yet I simply can't find them.

So, my questions would have to be - am I expecting too much? Does anyone have any suggestions for 'easy' beginners DSO's, and what objects 'could' be visible using say 10x50 binoculars or which ones are too faint to only be shown by a telescope mounted DSLR set to a long exposure? Am I simply confusing some of these small clusters with adjacent stars?

I don't have a GOTO as I was 'advised' that learning to locate objects in the sky manually would give me a better knowledge of exactly what's out there and where, and I don't dispute this. But if I can't see what it is I'm looking for then frustration might eventually turn into simply not bothering to look for anything at all...

Frustratingly, John

[baggywrinkle]

Get a copy of 'Turn Left at Orion'.

Great book for astronomers of all levels, but especially for new starters.

The targets are graded for 3 levels, binoculars, small refractor and an 8'' dob. There are drawings for the views in each and with each types orientation. Plus what a finder scope view should be.

On top of the OTA grading they are graded on how easy they are to see.

Well worth the money, can be found on Amazon in both Kindle and bound copy.

[skfboiler]

Your scope and mount is very similar to mine.  You should be able to see some nice views with it.   Yours comes with a better focuser.   Just be patient and keep practicing.  What got me over the hump was the star hopping method using the book  "Pocket Sky Atlas" and a circular disk or wire ring that you make the size of the field of view of your finder scope.  Find out the FOV of your finder.   If yours is like mine, a 6x50 finder scope it should be 7°. "Pocket Sky Atlas" has a scale in degrees inside the front cover to make one.  Please read the method describe in the link I pasted.  When I started doing this a light bulb went off.  Not only I can now find stuff, I can find them fairly quickly.  The circular ring gave me sense of scale that helped.  Nothing like a good old fashion sky atlas to use at the scope like "Pocket Sky Atlas".  

 http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/using-a-map-at-the-telescope/

[Stu]

I wonder if the problem you are having relates to the different scale of DSO's, and getting used to the magnifications needed and what to expect?

Both objects you describe are 'easy', and should be visible in binoculars, so I guess just double check that you are in exactly the right place.

Assuming the light pollution at your site is not too bad, you should be able to see them, and even in binos, M3 should look like a large fuzzy star.

On the subject of scale, Praesepe is a relatively large open cluster, 70 arc minutes across and magnitude 3, whereas M3 is a small Globular cluster 4.6 arc minutes across and magnitude 6.19, which is about 15 times fainter if my maths is right. This means if light pollution is particularly bad then M3 may be much harder to find.

These snapshots from SkySafari hopefully give you an idea of scale, firstly with TelRad circles ie 0.5, 2 and 4 degrees

Then both showing the size in a low power Plossl (32mm) with my scope which has a 1350mm focal length giving x42 and 1.19 degree field of view.

Lastly with a 15mm Plossl for higher power giving x90 and a 0.56 degree field of view

You'll see that the higher power helps to increase the scale and detail in M3 but leads to you missing quite a lot of M44 as it doesn't fit.

I hope this is of some use. Don't be disheartened, it took me literally years to find certain objects. M81 and M82 I spent many hours trying to find before working out a good star hop to them, and sometimes under the typical rubbish skies we have things just aren't visible. It is unbelievable the difference that going to a dark site makes, things just jump out at you that are impossible from home.

It sounds like your finder is properly aligned, but make sure it is bang on at high power with Jupiter say as that will make life easier.

Good luck!

Cheers,

Stu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Floater]

Great post, BigMak. Very helpful for us beginners.

[johnd]

Yes, really helpful as I have felt the same way as OP, I think working out the scale for my 1500 FL and then what a 25mm and 12mm would look like in a 'ring'  to these sizes is my trouble (don't have  a FS yet).

[AndyWB]

+1 for Turn Left at Orion, and Skymaps.com are a decent free option that give you an idea what you should see naked eye, binoculars and small scope.

Personally, I found M3 a bit of a pain to find the first time. Dunno why, I didn't find it anywhere near as hard subsequently. Can I suggest M53 as an easier globular - it's close to Alpha Coma Berenices (Mag 4.3, and slightly dimmer than Beta Coma Berenices), which should make it pretty straight forward to find - and then you can crank up the magnification until you find what seems right.

Alternatively, M13 in Hercules is very good, and fairly easy to find, with it being nearly exactly on the line between Zeta and Eta HER - just make sure you're looking at the correct side of the Keystone asterism (the square that makes up his 'head'). Been there, done that.

Part of the learning experience is, I think, understanding what things look like at different magnifications. I hadn't realised how small many planetary nebulae were, or how huge things like Praesepe or the North America Nebula are.

[Moonshane]

great info above. I produced a guide to star hopping (and collimation) which might also help. I use the sky and telescope pocket atlas and recommend it highly for visual astronomy.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/197640-collimation-and-star-hopping/

[Stu]

Other 'Easy' targets are the Double Cluster in Perseus, use a nice low power, widefield to view this. Visible easily in binoculars too.

M13 and M53, already mentioned and should be easy to find and perhaps for the binos Mel 111, a lovely open cluster in Coma Berenices.

This is a very good resource:

http://skymaps.com/articles/n1404.html

If you download the monthly skymap it will help you a lot I think.

http://skymaps.com/downloads.html

http://skymaps.com/skymaps/tesmn1404.pdf

Cheers,

Stu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[steppenwolf]

Excellent post Stu - that will help a lot of people I'm sure!

[Dreamweaver]

Yes M3 for me was my first wow factor using 10X50 binoculars in heavily light polluted skies in SE London.  I could just make out a very very faint fuzzy star using the guidance of a printed star-map in an old Sky at night magazine!  Once I learned where it was and how to 'star hop' to it in my binoculars I could find it with ease. However I did find it was quite tricky for me to find it in the 10x50 right angle star finder on my first scope as the east and west were swapped around. I found this confusing and frustrating at first but then kept practicing and eventually I could find it easily. Now I use a corrected right angle star finder which has the same field of view as my binoculars so everything is the right way round as it should be and makes star hoping so much easier because you don't have to mentally swap east /west in your head!  M3 is faint and fuzzy until you view it through a large aperture scope, then the full glory of a multitude of pin-sharp stars explode in your eyepiece! 

[proflight2000]

There are 3 clusters within the Messier system which are M36, M37, M38 they are in the constellation of Auriga, they are batched within the same sort of area and you can follow a line up or down which will bring them all into your view. Google a constellation Diagram of Auriga and you will see what I mean, catching anything keeps you smiling as such, it is also a great way to follow a star system by hopping from one to the other. On the constellation map you will see they are sitting between the Alpha star ( Alp Aur ) and the Beta star in Taurus ( Bet Tau ) an imaginary line between those two stars will bring you into the cluster area. Once you are happy with moving around you will notice that from your position now you can find a few other goodies around by using the stars to hop along. Keep with it, don't loose faith as once you find these things you will never forget where you saw them.

By the way, just to mention, the Alpha star in Auriga is Capella and the Beta star in Taurus is Alnath, hope that helps.

[todd8137]

Do not give up!,half the fun for me years ago was not finding things it kept me going out every night ,turn left at orion is. Great book but I really believe it's aimed at people that already have a bit of knowledge of the night sky .

That said for years with dobs I was going the wrong way I would look through the finder and then at the ep the image was upside down I then clocked the fact that I had to turn my. Book up side down and after that I was on my way do not despair it's all part of the fun ,if it was easy you would soon get board

Pat

[ronin]

Do you have a finder on the 150 ?

Just ask as I didn't see mention of it.

Assuming there is one is it aligned, a very small angular difference can mean a blank sky.

Next what constellations do you know and do you have a book at present.

M3 is part of Canes Venatica and I have no idea where that is.

Everyone is saying get TLAO however if you have something then little point.

Bookwise I prefer The Monthely Sky Guide by Ridpath+Tirion.

If you are using Stellarium then I find that for working out location details it is not easy, either too much on the screen or just about everything gets wiped off. Looking at Stellarium I notice that on mine M3 is not readily displayed, I have the zoom in to the region before it is displays to me, whereas othere Messiers adn NGC's are marked. Since the setting is magnitude then a slight question.

Concerning goto, if you wanted it then you should have got it.

There are frustrations with them but ultimately you want to see things.

Oddly you do learn where things are, the idea that you don't seems very peculiar to me.

Ask scope to go to M3, you see where it is pointing and then aim binoculars at the same patch.

Ta-da you have learnt where M3 is.

A book tells you where to goto as well if you think about it.

M3 is in a bit of sky CV that is barren, actually that bit was counted as part of Ursa Major and not a constellation on it's own. Nothing much was there so it got tagged to UMa.

I still have questions about the actual brightness, or something. My reference shows the markers for several messiers 5, 6, 7, 8, 22, 57, 13, 11 on the page for Bootes, many of these are dimmer then M3 but M3 is not indicated, however location wise it is splat in the centre of the sky map for May.

Odd but how did you go about trying to locate M3?

As in start where and go where ?

To me it is Plough Handle round the Arcturus, then back "up" towards the handle of the plough (straightish line) and it is about 1/3 of the way. Simply were you doing the right thing(s).

Could you have mistook Mars for Arcturus ? Not a daft as it sounds.

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

here is a helpful site for newcomers. 

http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fov.htm

once the site is open, on the left hand dropdown select your telescope.

on the right hand dropdown you can select a different number of cameras from DSLR to astro cameras.

Below the camera selection is an eyepiece selection, you click this hand select an eyepiece. 

the object menu is just that solar Messier and caldwell. 

in the middle is submit. its hand as it gives you a rough idea of what to expect in the field of view when looking for that object/s

[Johnny666666]

Thank you all for so many wonderfully supportive and informative replies!

It's going to take me a while to sift through them all, but I have ordered a couple of the books mentioned and will work through them steadily. I have to say I do have a problem getting used to the reversed image in the scope, but I have set various options in Stellarium which supposedly give me the 'correct' view in my 'scope, though I'm still disorientated by the image moving in the opposite direction to the slew of the 'scope!

Clear skies to all

[cotterless45]

You'll get used to it. A bit of patience and enthusiasm are two things you can't get delivered,

Nick.

[RichM63]

 though I'm still disorientated by the image moving in the opposite direction to the slew of the 'scope!

I'm not sure that I fully understand this issue.

But as you have evidently found the menu controls in Stellarium one extra control you can instigate is the 'Flip View' tool. This will allow you to flip the displayed image horizontally/vertically or both.

Stellarium Config Window/F2/Tools/Show flip buttons.

So for example instead of Mars rising from the East and moving through South to West, left to right across your screen, you can have it moving right to left.

You can also toggle the Ocular view to reverse the Stellarium expanded image in this manner. (try it with a Cluster or some such) you'll see what it does.

Canis Majoris NGC 2362 will give a good idea.

I also have a 150/750 EQ3-2 in my kit. Just be sure that you have set the hand controler to N for northern hemisphere otherwise you'll soon have steam pouring from your ears if you try to resolve flipped views and southern hemisphere, when you know that you are facing South in the northern hemisphere and tracking in the correct direction.

Cheers,

Rich

[Stu]

Thank you all for so many wonderfully supportive and informative replies!

It's going to take me a while to sift through them all, but I have ordered a couple of the books mentioned and will work through them steadily. I have to say I do have a problem getting used to the reversed image in the scope, but I have set various options in Stellarium which supposedly give me the 'correct' view in my 'scope, though I'm still disorientated by the image moving in the opposite direction to the slew of the 'scope!

Clear skies to all

Johnny, probably the easiest way to sort this is get either a Telrad or RACI finder, or both. The Telrad is a zero magnification finder that puts up 0.5, 2 and 4 degree circles making it easy to position the scope just by eye, and obviously there is no reversal of image.

A RACI finder (Right Angle, Correct Image) finder has magnification and light gathering power so will show you fainter objects, but again has no reversal of image.

With these two, it makes it much easier to get targets in the scope field of view, where it is still reversed but at least you have found it!

If it helps, you do get used to it! I started using a RACI finder recently but was so used to the reversed view in standard finders and my scope that I kept going the wrong way with the RACI!

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/telrad-finder-astronomy.html

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/skywatcher-9x50-right-angled-erecting-finderscope.html

Hope that helps,

Stu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cotterless45]

A Telrad may be used with printed off charts to great effect !

http://www.atmob.org/library/member/skymaps_jsmall.html

Nick.

[NIGHTBOY]

Thank you all for so many wonderfully supportive and informative replies!

It's going to take me a while to sift through them all, but I have ordered a couple of the books mentioned and will work through them steadily. I have to say I do have a problem getting used to the reversed image in the scope, but I have set various options in Stellarium which supposedly give me the 'correct' view in my 'scope, though I'm still disorientated by the image moving in the opposite direction to the slew of the 'scope!

Clear skies to all

When I'm 'guiding' with the finder scope I keep BOTH eyes open. I then guide the centre of the cross I'm looking at with my right eye onto the star/planet I'm looking at with my left eye. Works for me, give it a try.

Also when I'm viewing the object, moving the scope to the right will move the object to the right, up will move it up and so on. think of it like you're moving the object the same way in the viewfinder by pushing the scope the way you want the object to move.

Hope that makes sense...

[proflight2000]

There is a very weird but wonderful way of using a finder, the same as you can do in an eyepiece. Instead of closing one eye and thus leaving one open to view, keep both eyes open and look at the object in two different ways, one close, one far, it may sound utterly stupid and hard to do, but with a little practise it becomes second nature. For instance, if your finder has cross hairs and is aligned with the scope of course, look for a bright star and using both eyes pull it into the cross hairs, you know it is there as it will then vanish from the eye you are looking directly at the sky with. Give it a go, you will see (no pun intended) what i mean.

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

here we go a picture that will show you why mars is one of the harder planets to image

poor old mars is smaller than the earth , and saturn is off the scale it is one super huge gas giant

this is the reason that mars can be a right pain to photograph

[C7tsj]

There are 3 clusters within the Messier system which are M36, M37, M38 they are in the constellation of Auriga, they are batched within the same sort of area and you can follow a line up or down which will bring them all into your view. Google a constellation Diagram of Auriga and you will see what I mean, catching anything keeps you smiling as such, it is also a great way to follow a star system by hopping from one to the other. On the constellation map you will see they are sitting between the Alpha star ( Alp Aur ) and the Beta star in Taurus ( Bet Tau ) an imaginary line between those two stars will bring you into the cluster area. Once you are happy with moving around you will notice that from your position now you can find a few other goodies around by using the stars to hop along. Keep with it, don't loose faith as once you find these things you will never forget where you saw them.

By the way, just to mention, the Alpha star in Auriga is Capella and the Beta star in Taurus is Alnath, hope that helps.

These are great to view and very easy to pick out for beginners (like me....).

I understand how the OP feels, think we have all been there. M1 is my arch nemeses but day I will find and defeat it.

Mark

[C7tsj]

here we go a picture that will show you why mars is one of the harder planets to image

poor old mars is smaller than the earth , and saturn is off the scale it is one super huge gas giant

this is the reason that mars can be a right pain to photograph

Relative_satellite_sizes.jpg

Is that why Mars always looks slightly blurry in every picture I have seen. Is it simply due to scale?