Advice and help for a newbie please

[Keltoi]

Hi I currently have a skywatcher 200p on an eq5 mount , 25mm 15 mm 6mm plossi's, a 2x Barlow and standard skywatcher 25 and 10mm eps. My observation site (back garden) faces north east with decent views north , east and west north west. reasonably dark site as fields at back of house and next village lights about 1/2 mile away, House block's views to the South and South West and the street lights.

I am having difficulty finding "areas" to look at apart from the moon and jupiter.   I Can find Polaris, the big dipper, Cassiopea, Vega, Denab and Cygnus, but have real difficulty finding for example the Elephant Trunk,  Wizard and Iris Nebulae. This is possibly mainly because I have no idea what I'm looking for but also because I find it hard to get scope pointing where I want it.

with the 25 mm plossi I have some amazing views thru the scope that you simply cant see with the naked eye including I believe what was a satalite flying across my  field of view last night.

I have the scope polar aligned, at least enough that polaris stays in center of fov over a 1hr period. Finder Scope  (9x50) is aligned with main scope, but does require focusing better.

I also have a dual axis motor kit ready to be installed. I have Stellerium on pc and also Skeye  on a tablet, but have problems actualy seeing details on the 7inch screen  at night with red mode on.

So my questions are

A, how do I find for example the Elephant Trunk Nebulae and know that ive found it.

B, and most important , how can I convert my dual motor kit to a goto system using my laptop and possibly a guiding cam.  I know I can get something called AstroEQ but tbh cant afford that atm as we live on wife's state pension and my dla. I did read on astroeq site that can build your own using a Arduino mega so was hoping to go down this path, BUT I cant seem to find an Arduino mega for sale, I do see some kits etc on maplins and amazon etc, but not sure if they contain the ardunio mega mainboard.  So if any one can shed some light on this for me it would be greatly appreciated.

 

p.s I can handle a solder iron and read electrical/electronic diagrams etc.  but find it difficult to sight along my OTA etc.

 

[vlaiv]

A. Learn star hopping - you find a bright star close to target, find it in scope field of view (use long focal length eyepiece to do this - you need big FOV), then check your star chart / planetarium and see what stars should be in eyepiece, set direction on sky chart / planetarium program and move to next star - repeat until on target . Stellarium has a nice feature / plugin called Oculars plugin or something along those lines - it will display the view you get at your eyepiece if you configure it properly (scope focal length and eyepiece specs).

You will know you found your target only when you see it . Get used to "missing" the target. It happened so many times to me ... Try to identify stars surrounding the object - if you see those you are in target area but unable to see target itself. Maybe start with easier to spot targets so you know your star hopping skills work. After some practice move onto harder targets.

B. There are a couple of projects online that instruct you how to DIY controller for motors and connect to PC. Have a look at PicGoto and some pluses after (let me see if I can find it for you) - here it is: https://sites.google.com/site/picgoto/english-manual

or search for others ...

[brantuk]

The Elephants trunk (IC1396A) is in Cephus in the northern sky and due north right now. But it's quite low at the moment though with a clear view of the horizon and a transparent night shouldn't be too hard to find. It's just below the star Alpha Chep (Alderamin) if you hop from there. Make sure you know what it looks like first by googling some images of your object - it'll help you to recognise when you see it. Hth

[Paz]

If it's for visual observing and you're finding things manually a simple star atlas on paper with a red light I find is better than a tablet or a phone partly as you can see more sky on the map and partly (I find) that phones kill my night vision - even if you set them to red in an astronomy app, one mistake and yo're out of the app and blinded by your phone!

With an EQ mount you can search in straight lines up and down or left/right according to the celestial north/south/east/west as sky maps show you - this makes finding easier than with alt/az mounts.

I would recommend adding a telrad or red dot finder to your set up - it makes pointing much easier, and if your finder scope turns the image inside out I would recommend getting a RACI finder that shows things the right way up like on your map so it is less confusing (and a 90 degree finder will be easier to use than a straight-through one).

Try looking for a star pattern near to your target that you know you can find/ recognise and find that first as an anchor - and then find your target. I've not looked for the elephant trunk nebula but having googled it it looks like it might be a low surface brightness target that is best suited to dark skies and you might not see it at all unless you go somewhere really dark.

Sometimes I can;t see my targets but I know for sure I have the right spot and I know I'm looking right at them. Where this happens I realise I have expected too much. For example I looked for M101 recently and found the spot quickly but couldn't see it at all no matter what trick I tried. In hindsight if I'd checked it out in my books first instead of charging outside and going for whatever was straight up (it was a rare chance to get out under clear skies!) I would have realised M101 was never going to work in my back yard due to light pollution. I wonder if it may be the same issue for some of those targets you have in mind.

[Keltoi]

thanks for the advice guys,  have found the following website on another which I think will help a lot as his drawings show what I can expect to see as he appears to use same scope.

http://www.deepskywatch.com/messier-dso-sketches.html

 

have been looking fitting at a Telrad and/or changing my finder to a RACI and is on the cards.

[brantuk]

I do like that page Keltoi - so I've bookmarked it. Thanks for the link

[Owmuchonomy]

Are the targets suggested by the poster visible? I've never tried but I would have thought not. The Wizard I thought was hard to image let alone see? I am happy to be corrected.

[vlaiv]

He might use the same scope as we do (I too observe with 8") but his skies are a far far away from mine (according to his wonderful sketches).

[Keltoi]

he's based in Israel I believe  so probable that some wont be visible, but are some at least I can start with.  No idea  as to if wizard nebulae is visible  but its in same area between Deneb and Cassiopea  which should be well in view from my garden.  ( I think lol).

 

[laudropb]

What you can see is totally dependent on the skies you are viewing under. Light pollution and poor seeing conditions, ie unsteady images are all to frequent in this country. You have to realise the limitations of your observing site.

having said that there is always something to see when the sky is cloudless. I may be old fashioned, but I prefer to use a good star atlas such as the sky and telescope pocket atlas. I found it much easier to learn to star hop this way, but it takes patience. You will fail many times in the beginning, but you just have to try again. When you succeed, and you will sometimes, you will get an even bigger buzz when viewing your target.

[Riemann]

9 hours ago, Keltoi said:

thanks for the advice guys,  have found the following website on another which I think will help a lot as his drawings show what I can expect to see as he appears to use same scope.

http://www.deepskywatch.com/messier-dso-sketches.html

 

have been looking fitting at a Telrad and/or changing my finder to a RACI and is on the cards.

Lovely sketches.    Very good representations of the ones I have bagged already and very helpful for the ones I haven't!

A Telrad will give you a huge leap in ability to find things.   Even with a GOTO it is useful, with a manual I would regard it (or a Rigel) as almost essential.

[Stu]

Some good points made already.

I agree that a TelRad would be of great help finding objects, and helping you star hop using the TelRad circles on a star map or planetarium program/app

I suspect much of the issue is around object visibility and fields of view though. Your biggest field of view with the 25mm plossl is only 1.25 degrees. That's fine for many objects, but for some of the larger fainter nebulae you can end up looking through the object and not realising you are looking at it, you need to be able to detect the edges where there is contrast in order to see them properly. The North America Nebula and Rosette Nebula are other examples. If it makes you feel better, I've never seen the Elephant Trunk Nebula in 16 years observing, but then I've never tried for it!

I would suggest trying for some other, easier targets of higher surface brightness which are smaller and easier to detect. Plenty of galaxies around in Leo and Virgo for example. How about the Leo triplet?

Here are some diagrams from SkySafari to illustrate my points. The smaller circle is the field of view with your 25mm Plossl, the outer one is with a widefield 31mm 82 degree eyepiece. You can see that the smaller objects are fine, but the larger ones can tend to fill the field of view so be easier to miss, especially as they are by definition faint.

Doea that make sense?