Astronomy Help

[AstroWatch29]

Hello All,

I am fairly new to using telescopes. I always had a hard time finding objects in space. I decided to get back in it when i received a telescope as a gift. I am now the proud owner of a Celestron 114 LCM. I think all I needed was some practice. The past few nights have been fantastic and I could not be happier. I can see Saturn and the rings. I have a 25mm and a 9mm eyepiece. I also now have a 3x barlow. So, as time goes on I find myself very pleased that I can find planets. I tried using it to find deep space objects but I am having problems. I do not know if it I am having a hard time locating them or if I won't be able to see them. I am at a fairly dark area where I live so I don't believe that is the issue. When you look at M51 or other galaxies through your telescope what can you expect to see?

Bryan

[kalasinman]

If you get Stellarium (free) , it can help find objects and under oculars, you can enter the details of you scope and any Barlows, etc. and it will show an example of what you should see. Just click on the target, then the circle in the upper right.

[Dave In Vermont]

+ 1 regards Stellarium. Stellarium is a fantastic planetarium/sky charting program. You set it to your location and time. Then adjust other settings to your personal taste. Then be amazed! Downloading the instruction manual is also a good idea. As kalasinman noted - It's FREE! One of the developers is a member here. Here's the link:

http://www.stellarium.org/

DSO's (Deep Space Objects) are usually grey in colour, and are also known as Faint Fuzzies for good reason. Tracking them down is great fun. You'll learn to use your eyes in new ways, such as with averted-vision. Seeing them in colour is the domain of astrophotography and video-astrophotography. Cameras/CCD chips have the ability to allow light to continue to accumulate which is necessary to bring out the colours we see in photos from things like the Hubble Space Telescope. Our eyes don't have this ability. What you get after about 15 - 20 minutes of dark-adaptation is about all she wrote. There are exceptions, though. Such as M42, the Orion Nebula.

Enjoy the scope!

Dave

[baggywrinkle]

Welcome to SGL.

Also get a planisphere and a copy of Turn Left At Orion.

While a planisphere is totally handdraulic its chart is simple and allows you to ID the major stars and constellations.

TLAO has pages and pages of objects to find and how to find them. It presents images that are cloaser to what can be seen in three types of device, bins, small scope, large scope, and they are not Hubble type images.

[DRT]

what can you expect to see?

Hello, Bryan,

A very good place to start is the thread titled "What can I expect to see?"

That thread provides a very comprehensive to one of the most common questions we see here from people who are new to the hobby. Many here started the journey by reading that thread and it really helps limit your expectations and avoid disappointment.

Best of luck.

Derek

[ronin]

What you will see - this was to me a good example of expectation and reality, just scroll down a bit to the Orion nebula, the expectation is a bit exaggerated whereas the reality is very close to the truth. :eek:

http://bigtelescope.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/christmas-and-telescopes-how-to-avoid.html

Very few objects are highly visible, and you will need to do a slight amount of "homework" to identify relatively easy objects and to an extent decide what to go look at or for.

[Pete Presland]

Globular and open star clusters give good views at the eyepiece. As do double star's especially if they are different colours.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

[brantuk]

With careful scrutiny and using averted vision - this is very close to what you can see of M51 in an 8" Newtonian scope at a dark site with good'ish seeing:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=M51+drawing&biw=1118&bih=555&tbm=isch&imgil=1x9kQRaRPbOZfM%253A%253B69u2oq2OFB3l6M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.deepskywatch.com%25252FAstrosketches%25252Fwhirlpool-galaxy-m51-sketch.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=1x9kQRaRPbOZfM%253A%252C69u2oq2OFB3l6M%252C_&usg=__2a56bEh1vCVpq2XcVsj0LxG09bI%3D&ved=0CDoQyjdqFQoTCMPyzKGSq8cCFWI52wods7EB9A&ei=vDfPVcOkC-Ly7Aaz44agDw#imgrc=1x9kQRaRPbOZfM%3A&usg=__2a56bEh1vCVpq2XcVsj0LxG09bI%3D

Hth