Making Sure

[Bindweed]

Hi, apologies if this is a daft question. Last night I was with the children in the garden and we were looking for M34. We used a copied sheet from the Cambridge Star Atlas to get us to the right place. The thing is if your analogue how do you validate what your looking at is what your supposed to be looking at. As my daughter said after a while looking together 'Are you sure Dad?'

[ronin]

Has daughter not got the utmost confidence that Dad knows what he is doing?

There is a "List of Messier objects" on Wikipedia with an image of each get a copy of that and match up what you see to the image, Also seems to be freecharts.com that have images. Really comes down to having a reference and matching your view to the reference.

If you enter "Messier 34" into google there is a row of images for M34 and although variation they are much the same, the variation being cause I suspect from the scope aperture and sothe light gathered.

Also - if you are digital you never trust the thing and so still check. You check that it is pointed at the right bit of sky and also that it hasn't found another nearby cluster just to upset and confuse you with. Never trust a goto, had one for 14 years and still don't trust it.

[Astro Imp]

The view at the eyepiece is best compared with sketches produced by experienced observers.

A good resource for Messier objects is the excellent sketches produced by Mike, a one time member of this forum:- http://www.pbase.com/mike73/messier_sketches

HTH and good luck.

[Tiny Small]

Whole heartedly agree. Sketches are the way to do it. Photographs are misleading because they have been taken with long exposures over an extended period. The eye will never see the same detail as a photograph.

[Bindweed]

I live in matriarchy a healthily scepticism towards males predominates at home ;-). Thanks for the replies & suggestions, the sketches are very helpful and help keep expectations reasonable.

[noah4x4]

Interesting question; did I really see......?

I have done  most of my observing from my light polluted back yard and have reached a level of competence where I can pick out most popular  constellations and name a percentage of their principle stars. But when you can see so few stars that isn't too difficult. DSO's are inevitably more tricky, But my Starsense alignment tool and SkySafari is a great help.

What warmed my heart about this thread was that I recently went to a seriously good dark sky site where I could see so many extra stars that the usual constellations that guide me had faded into one glorious tapestry. I lost all confidence that I had accurately picked out with the naked eye anything except Ursa Major,  Vega,  Arcturus, Mars and the Moon (and apart from the latter, I was no longer sure!). The Starsense camera came to my rescue.

This started me thinking. When doing a traditional multiple star alignment is having fewer bright stars as options actually easier? I adopted Starsense from inception as with my impaired eyesight even aligning my finderscope with eyepiece was challenging. But it must be daunting trying to  identify and align upon a particular star when there are some many visible that it casts doubts you have the one you think it is.. I would recommend Starsense to anybody that has found alignment and finding objects a challenge, particularly if your eyesight isn't 20/20.

[brantuk]

It helps to make a plan and know what object you're going after and how you're going to find it in the first place. I plan star hops using Stellarium or any of the popular tablet/phone apps like Sky Safari. But I can also recommend books like Turn Left at Orion, or Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders which give a diagram/drawing of what the object looks like, how to find it, and additional information.
 Hth

[Arpad]

What I do to make sure that I know what object I am observing, is that I connect the PC with the mount (I have a Celestron Advanced VX mount, with GoTo control), and I use Starry Night (software) to control the telescope. I put my telescope specs into the starry night software and it will tell me the field of view (which objects are within my field of view ...) as well show exactly where the telescope is looking at. Note that Stellarium also has telescope control and shows you your field of view.

Through starry night you can also see which objects will appear at what times (similar to Stellarium, just has a lot more options). With the pro plus version you can do almost anything.

[Bindweed]

Thanks, downloaded Stellarium, and put a planetarium app on the tablet, white pencils and black paper. Now I just need the skies to clear...

Thanks for the help.

[Linda]

Your daughter asked a good and legitimate question.

In general, if you have done a proper star hop where you have good control of where exactly you are looking, and you find your grey fuzzy there, it is very clear that you've found your galaxy or globular cluster. When when you see a cluster of stars packed closely together, it is also clear. But open clusters are very difficult. They are not so recognizable. I carry along a printout of all Messier objects and other popular NGC objects, that I can check outside with my red light. Alternativ if that I look them up on my phone on an astro-image. And last resort is sketching what I see. But so far, I haven't done that with open clusters yet. Another option is checking (afterwards) in Stellarium in eyepiece view.

[Davesellars]

All good advice from above.  Best thing is to have something with you at the scope so you can check the position of obvious stars around the object for example.  Something like M34 is pretty difficult to miss - it's a pretty large open cluster and pretty obvious from the stars around it.  Wait until you get to the little iddy diddy clusters in Cygnus that'll have you clawing your eyes out to distinguish apart from the dense star field they lie in.

[cloudsweeper]

What helped me to get success with star hopping is Stellarium in ocular view.  Coupled with that, I use a low mag/wide angle EP in the ST120, so that the views in EP and Stellarium correspond closely.  (The view in Stellarium has to be reversed, of course - CTRL SHIFT H.)  I move between recognisable star patterns until the target is reached, then increase the mag as required.

Doug.

[glowjet]

There is a very nice publication "Observing the Deep Sky" by Darren Bushnall, won`t cost you an arm and a leg but is priced just a fraction above the standard postage rate, from that great online book seller, is excellent value for the Astronomical information it contains. 

 Covers at some length the art of sketching and shows many drawings of some of the popular Messier objects, may encourage your Daughter to get even more involved with the sketching side of what you both see, enjoy

[Bindweed]

Just an update, after taking advice offered. We checked stellarium to see what to expect, found M34 (again) we know for sure as we sat plotting on a sheet of paper and confirmed it was 'similar' to other sketches. As an aside sitting sketching made us look slower and more carefully, so this is the way forward for us. Just wished the wind wasn't so keen! 

Thank you.