My first Fuzzies

[Naten]

I am pretty new to astronomy. Though I have had a Celestron AstroMaster LT 60AZ for a while, I am just now getting into using it a lot.

Until now, that meant I was only looking at stars and planets. But today at 10:30 PM local time, during partly cloudy skies, I took the scope outside to look at things. I had already drawn a map of Sagittarius, including what I needed to know to make sure a star was the star I was looking for (spectral type and magnitude.) However, I didn't need that information too much. It was easier than I thought, as on this clear night, Sagittarius is one of the only constellations clearly visible from the suburbs.

I located what I think to be M22 pretty quickly with the 20mm eyepiece. In the 10mm, it was invisible. It appeared as an anomaly or a smudge on the lens at first, but it moved with the stars through my telescope. Aside from the Pleiades, M22 was my first Fuzzy. It was so dark, averted vision had a great effect on how well I saw it.

After a bit of time, I said bye to Fuzzy and quickly located Andromeda. It was late enough so that some of its stars were far enough from the horizon to be visible. I used binoculars to see it brighter, and then pointed the scope to where M31 should be, assuming I was actually pointing at Andromeda. After a few tries and some more 20mm eyepiece sweeping, I found it. It looked very dark and fuzzy, too, but this Fuzzy had an elongated shape. M31 was slightly brighter than the other Fuzzy, M22. First galaxy, and first time seeing M31.

Two Fuzzies with one stone. I am pretty happy right now. I have to go to sleep to recharge my space section of my brain.

I hope you enjoyed this short story of a great astronomy achievement of mine.  I was starting to doubt whether or not I would be able to see a Fuzzy anytime soon. Clear skies, Naten

[FenlandPaul]

Congratulations, Naten.  Those are a couple of showcase objects that you've chosen for your first fuzzies - nice one.  You seem to have nailed locating things too - which is a real achievement. 

If you're in the suburbs, you may find that globular clusters (like M22) and open clusters (like the Pleiades) still have an amazing capacity to punch through the murky skies, though fainter galaxies and nebulae can sometimes be tricky as they get washed out (although certain filters can help with nebulae).

Look forward to more of your reports.

Paul

[RobertI]

Nice report Naten, well done on your first fuzzies. As Paul says Globular clusters are worth seeking out, there are plenty of them and they are compact so fairly easy to see, and they will apear as fuzzy blobs, rather than individual stars in your size scope. Your refractor will excel at double stars and open clusters where you can see the individual stars; after many years observing I have only just discovered the joy of observing doubles through a small refractor.  

[Davesellars]

Well done on your first dim fuzzies!   With time it becomes a little easier to identify and look at features within them.  M31 can be quite something with a dark enough sky.  Perhaps try for the M13 globular cluster which should show OK in your scope.  However, your scope will really show really quite nicely open clusters.  Look up the Double Cluster & M34 for example and particularly take in the region around Sagittarius and Cygnus with an atlas.

[Naten]

11 hours ago, FenlandPaul said:

Congratulations, Naten.  Those are a couple of showcase objects that you've chosen for your first fuzzies - nice one.  You seem to have nailed locating things too - which is a real achievement. 

If you're in the suburbs, you may find that globular clusters (like M22) and open clusters (like the Pleiades) still have an amazing capacity to punch through the murky skies, though fainter galaxies and nebulae can sometimes be tricky as they get washed out (although certain filters can help with nebulae).

Look forward to more of your reports.

Paul

Thank you. I am familiar with how globulars don't lose much in bad conditions, and that's why I chose them as first fuzzy candidates. I only looked for M31 because I got confident in my fuzzy-spotting skills.

10 hours ago, RobertI said:

Nice report Naten, well done on your first fuzzies. As Paul says Globular clusters are worth seeking out, there are plenty of them and they are compact so fairly easy to see, and they will apear as fuzzy blobs, rather than individual stars in your size scope. Your refractor will excel at double stars and open clusters where you can see the individual stars; after many years observing I have only just discovered the joy of observing doubles through a small refractor.  

Thank you, too. I wanted to look at binaries, but it was getting a bit late for me and Ursa Major was already below the horizon. I have observed Mizar-Alcor, and I believe I split Mizar into two stars, and I may have even split Mizar A or B. I will look for some binary stars to observe.

5 hours ago, Davesellars said:

Well done on your first dim fuzzies!   With time it becomes a little easier to identify and look at features within them.  M31 can be quite something with a dark enough sky.  Perhaps try for the M13 globular cluster which should show OK in your scope.  However, your scope will really show really quite nicely open clusters.  Look up the Double Cluster & M34 for example and particularly take in the region around Sagittarius and Cygnus with an atlas.

Thanks! M13 was a candidate, but M22 was chosen because it was lower; I was having trouble getting even Vega into my telescope a few nights before as it was almost at the zenith. The LT 60AZ's mount doesn't have too good of an elevation limit, and it starts to lock up around 80° or so (I can't tell exactly because it doesn't have any angle markings on the mount, and I don't have anything to measure the angle.) Though the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules is much farther away from the Zenith at my observing time and location at this time of year, I figured M22 would be an easier target. I think tonight or the next night, I will attempt to locate M22. 
 

The other candidate fuzzy was M5, but it was deemed too dark to be easily spotted. However, the AstroMaster LT 60AZ has a limiting (stellar) magnitude of 11.4 or so in perfect conditions, so I could probably squeeze a few more magnitudes out of it in less light polluted skies.