Am I not going to be able to see anything until september?

[Jimtheslim]

I had a look at Jupiter long before nightfall the other day. Put my scope out to cool down at twilight and could just about see it with the naked eye against the blue sky. Decided to have a quick peak through the scope at it, not really expecting much and got some of the best views I've ever had (ok so I've only been observing for a few months). It may well have been down to the seeing conditions being good, however I found that the aberration from my refractor was just about zero and with no glare the detail was much easier to see, not just the main bands but the polar regions being clearly different colours, moons still visible. The fact it was set against a blue, rather than black sky made it seem even more like something out of sci-fi film as it looked like it was gliding past in the daytime. I'll always now be looking for it around twilight so there are always things you can do without the sky being truly 'dark. I also really like observing the moon at twilight.

[toilandtrouble123]

Moon shots at twilight are really something else, although the dust on one of my optics can be quite distracting...

[Stropper]

Hi

Lots of people have said many of the things that I would. As a relative newcomer I have become more and more enchanted with what some might call the simple things in the sky

One thought. Why not try photographing the moon in daylight adding some landscape to give more composition to the picture. It can work out really well. And Venus is currently visible well before sunset here so I guess where you are too

Good luck

[toilandtrouble123]

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-april-17-25/

TA Daaaaa!!  And don't forget ISS passes too. I use this to see when it's visible from my location xx

http://clearoutside.com/forecast/50.82/-0.14

[hgjevans]

I just looked at the ring nebula in stellarium. surface brightness of 10 seems unreal! M42 only has a SB of 13 and that's a naked-eye object! Albeit rather small.

...

Although. SB of 10 sounds like it could be a star from a naked-eye perspective. I might be able to see it from my back yard...

Don't let an impressive suface brightness figure mislead you - it can do that just as much as apparent magnitude can. SB is averaged across an extended object like a nebula, and you can get a lot of variation from one point to another. M42 is like that - bits of it are very bright indeed, and that's what you can see with the naked eye. But the rest of it - the greater part of it in fact, is much less bright, and that depresses the overall surface brightness figure. M57 is the other way round - its brightness is comparatively evenly distributed, and that gives it a good SB figure - but make no mistake,  it's a lot less bright than the brighter parts of M42.

Happily, though, that does make it very well defined in the eyepiece, even from relatively poor suburban skies. I had a quick shuftie at it last night, in fact, although I had better views of it in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when the skies were clearer.

Regarding the more general point about short nights and no true astro-dark in the summer months - well don't be too put off by that. You like globular clusters (and I'm with you all the way on that - they're my favourites) - well, happily they hold up pretty well in not-so-dark conditions. For one thing, by their very nature they're fairly concentrated 'objects'. And for another, they tend to be in the southern skies, far away from that glow on the northern horizon. There's some lovely ones coming up into our skies right now, so my advice is just forget the astro-dark issue, and get ready for a great globular cluster season! 

[pipnina]

Don't let an impressive suface brightness figure mislead you - it can do that just as much as apparent magnitude can. SB is averaged across an extended object like a nebula, and you can get a lot of variation from one point to another. M42 is like that - bits of it are very bright indeed, and that's what you can see with the naked eye. But the rest of it - the greater part of it in fact, is much less bright, and that depresses the overall surface brightness figure. M57 is the other way round - its brightness is comparatively evenly distributed, and that gives it a good SB figure - but make no mistake,  it's a lot less bright than the brighter parts of M42.

Happily, though, that does make it very well defined in the eyepiece, even from relatively poor suburban skies. I had a quick shuftie at it last night, in fact, although I had better views of it in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when the skies were clearer.

Regarding the more general point about short nights and no true astro-dark in the summer months - well don't be too put off by that. You like globular clusters (and I'm with you all the way on that - they're my favourites) - well, happily they hold up pretty well in not-so-dark conditions. For one thing, by their very nature they're fairly concentrated 'objects'. And for another, they tend to be in the southern skies, far away from that glow on the northern horizon. There's some lovely ones coming up into our skies right now, so my advice is just forget the astro-dark issue, and get ready for a great globular cluster season! 

If only stellarium let me go through lists in a nicer way! I found you can search objects by catalogue and type in the seach field. Unfortunately you have to go to the search field again every time you want to go to the next object which makes searching for good ones (aka, not below the ground) a little tedious!

Tonight seems like a good obsering night, though! (no cloud all night and with "very good" seeing, but with 11-15mph winds which could be a problem with my wobbly mount.) So I'm getting the equipment ready and my lists filled!

[hgjevans]

Good for you! Yes, no matter what time of year we have to grab the opportunities when they're there. I've had my mount out in the back garden, set up and aligned since Tuesday, and it looks like it can stay out for a few more days to come. Tonight I hope to be having a look at M104 (the Sombrero galaxy) for the first time through my current scope, and at my current location. It was impressive when I saw it once before, from where I used to live - darker skies, but I had a lot less aperture in those days. I'm hoping the LP here won't wash it out too much. And if it does, well, I'll still have M13, M3, M5, M92, M53, etc. etc. to enjoy.

Anyway, I hope you have a good one tonight - it looks very promising here. 

[hgjevans]

Oh, I forget to say, yes - I find Stellarium's search facilities a little less helpful than they might be. But I guess we just persevere. It astonishes me sometimes, reading the observing reports of many of the more experienced members here - they seem almost to have entire catalogues of DSO's fixed in their memories. I suppose that just comes with time - many hours, over many sessions, over many years, spent at the eyepiece. 

[pipnina]

Good for you! Yes, no matter what time of year we have to grab the opportunities when they're there. I've had my mount out in the back garden, set up and aligned since Tuesday, and it looks like it can stay out for a few more days to come. Tonight I hope to be having a look at M104 (the Sombrero galaxy) for the first time through my current scope, and at my current location. It was impressive when I saw it once before, from where I used to live - darker skies, but I had a lot less aperture in those days. I'm hoping the LP here won't wash it out too much. And if it does, well, I'll still have M13, M3, M5, M92, M53, etc. etc. to enjoy.

Anyway, I hope you have a good one tonight - it looks very promising here. 

how bright is M104? Brighter than most galaxies? I don't have many ony my observing list but I have put M104, LEO triplet and M81/82. Mostly dominated by globs and nebulae.

[Dave Lloyd]

Chin up pip, summer star fields are rewarding and Vega's always worth a look

[hgjevans]

As I remember it, it was indeed brighter than most - it's more or less edge-on to us, which helps. Definitely worth a look, I think. I'm not sure if your scope has GoTo, or not, but if it's all manual (like mine), try lining up on Spica (the brightest star in Virgo) with a low power eyepiece, and then advance the Right Ascension control a few turns - the equivalent of about 40-50 minutes of RA, if I remember correctly. It should pop into view nicely, unless I've completely misjudged it! [That's happened many times before.  ] It should be at its highest point in the south just about bang on midnight.

[hgjevans]

... LEO triplet and M81/82. Mostly dominated by globs and nebulae.

I'm only two thirds of the way there with the Leo triplet - I can see the two Messiers, but the NGC galaxy always eludes me. I guess that's a light pollution issue. M81/82 - Bode's Nebulae - are old favourites though. I think they are for most of us - it's always a delight to see more than one DSO in a single view, and they really are bright - as these things go. 

[AstroGZ]

As a fellow 17 year old, I too have this same problem. On "school nights" observing is out of the question for these months, but there is plenty of time on weekend nights whilst still not being tired for school/college the next week! 

[Jimtheslim]

I've spent many painful hours bending around my scope trying to see a galaxy, but with no luck yet. My problem (other than small aperture, light pollution and probably poor seeing conditions) is that I find it impossible to follow my finderscope into the right area with it, just can't get my head round the back-to-front and upside down image. Time for a new finderscope I think! 

[D4N]

If your not getting on with Stellarium try cartes du ciel instead, it is also free and I personally find it easier to use. The array of buttons can be a it confusing at first but at least everything has tool tips so just scroll around until you find the one you want

Speaking of light nights, I live at 63.3N so don't get much dark in the summer months.

However the winter months make up for it and I don't mind a bit of solar observing

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[pipnina]

Just got back from the site. I have to say, hope cove has much darker skies than anywhere else I've been.

Unfortunately, a few things kinda ruined the whole session once again! One problem is that the finderscope I use (9x50 RACI) is still too little FOV for me to see enough to work out where I am, the fact most of the south was covered by a cliff and a really bright street lamp next to us! I won't be going there again, perhaps there's somewhere else.

Thing is, that place is at least 20 miles away from where I live on the outskirts of plymouth... Yet the images I took are still FULL or its LP, even though it was suitable for viewing, just not at the northern horizon.

Oh, and the 37 images x 25 second exposures... DSS doesn't seem to like them. This is what happened: http://i.imgur.com/fAJI8C3.png

Look carefully, and you'll see that the stars are trailing around faintly and that all the bits that look like stars are just hot pixels. *sigh* I guess that's what I get for using an ISO as high as 3200.

I'll be at wembury with the Plymouth astronomical society on the 22nd to see the meteor shower. The first time i'll have gotten to observe with them. I'm sure they'll have some useful info to pass on.

Better luck next time!