Best Wide-Field targets

[Commanderfish]

Hi there guys,

My Explore Scientific ED80 Triplet has finally been delivered (Parcel Force took 8 days to deliver it on a 48 hour service  )

With this scope I'll get the following views with my EPs:

6.1 degrees at x12

5 degrees at x16.5

4 degrees at x20

3 degrees at x28

2 degrees at x40

0.7 degrees at x80

I've been using a high focal length tight field SCT for so long that I can't imagine what targets would be best for a set up like this -  other than the Milky Way of course.  Any ideas?  

After last night's session with my SCT, I'm guessing the Cygnus region is going to be tasty

There are big nebs like the Lagoon, Veil and North America that I've never seen in the SCT, though that is likely due to light pollution at home.  I'm heading to a dark site tonight

[nicoscy]

You need to sit back and cruise from Sagittarius to Cygnus.

There are so many dark nebulae, tendrils and filaments of dark matter to see and all you need is a widefield instrument and low magnifications to enjoy these splendors!

Another object which is awesome in a wide field instrument is Kemble's Cascade. 

[Paul73]

I'm new to the "Little Frac Club" as well (SW ED80).

Have you given it an outing yet?

Add the Double Cluster and surrounding area in Persius to the list as a must see. A sweep or two of Casiopia is well worth the time.

Andromeda M31/2

NGC 752 cluster

Are a couple more.

Some familiar targets against a wide starfield are rewarding. I liked M57 in particular.

Paul

[PorkyB]

I agree that all of the targets listed above look great through a small refractor - Kembles Cascade and the Double Cluster are personal favourites.  Add to this the Coathanger.  For me, the best of the lot is Pleiades.  Also, there is the pleasure of simply wandering around the sky and exploring, Cassiopeia and Cygnus are both good areas for this.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have a very similar 80mm F/6, and love it as a complement to the 8" SCT. As others mention, cruising through the Milky Way is a delight. The North America Nebula and Pelican are brilliant, as is the Crescent (UHC filter recommended). The Flaming Star is great (but not at all easy) later in the year, and M31 and M33 are excellent targets as well. My best view of the latter was with the 80mm F/6 triplet and 22mm Nagler (22x, 3.76 deg FOV). Really stunning under dark skies.

[Paul73]

Sorry OP - Quick question for Michael.

Do you use a filter to view NA and Pelican? And, what level of darkness is needed?

Paul

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Sorry OP - Quick question for Michael.

Do you use a filter to view NA and Pelican? And, what level of darkness is needed?

Paul

Much depends on LP levels of course, but even in a dark location in France (close to Olly's place) I found the Pelican in particular jumped out at me much more than without the UHC filter. By suppressing starlight in this bright Milky-Way region you increase the contrast of the nebula with its surroundings.

[YKSE]

 I'm heading to a dark site tonight

Dark site is the key for lagre faint objects

I was in NELM 6.0 site last night, M31 was a naked eye object, and it showed good extension in 8x40 binos, while it showed mainly just the core in my backyard with an 8".

North American Nebula can best be seen the Gulf region in backyard with OIII, but under NELM 6.0 sky, it was an very well defined nebula in my 80ED.

[John]

It took me years to see the N A Nebula. In the end I found a very dark night and 15x70 binoculars gave me a nice view of it. Since then I've seen portions of it with my scopes using UHC and O-III filters but even the 3.8 degree true field that I can get with my 102mm F/6.5 Vixen ED refractor is not really enough to do such a large object justice.

Sometime back I tried using a 50mm plossl with the above refractor to get as wide and low power field as possible but I soon found that the background sky was almost never really dark at such ultra-low power which meant that, though you could fit large extended object in the field of view, the actual view of it was poor because of the "skyglow" background.

Now a 31mm ultra-wide eyepiece is my "lowest, widest" one which is somewhat more effective.

[Commanderfish]

So far with the ED80 I have seen:

Double Cluster, Owl Cluster, Milky Way star fields around Cygnus, Vega, The Garnet Star (Mu Cephae), The Swan (M17), Arcturus (red giant), M13 (a bit fuzzy) Mizar A&B wth Alcor, The Pleiades and Saturn.

Most of this was from home as I had my C9.25 SCT out at the dark site.  So I need to get out to a dark site again with the ED80 to try the North American and Pelican, The Veil, Eagle and Dumbbell Nebs.   

Anything else I've missed?

I've just picked up a used Nagler T6 3.5mm to boost the ED80 to x137 with a 0.6 degree TFOV, which should be useful under good seeing.  Might even manage to resolve a star or two in The Hercules Glob?

[Ccolvin968]

If you hang out around Arcturus you won't be disappointed. I spent three hours last Wednesday night in the Sagittarius area alone. Started with Arcturus, which is right there practically. The Sagittarius Star Cloud was really cool under low magnification in my 5" Can't wait for my 10" Dob to get to me on Tuesday. I'm in the same boat you are but in the U.S. I ordered my Dob with 3-5 Day Shipping. It will have been 10 days since I placed the order, 8 since it shipped. :\