Neptune's curse finally lifted

[ShrewView]

Inspired by some of the posts on the forum I thought it was time to seek out the outer giants Uranus and Neptune. So, a couple of months back I decided to make an effort and with the help of Stellarium planned out how to find them. Uranus was easy to find by hopping from nearby stars and I found that at the first attempt. It appeared as a grey green coloured disc; small but fairly obvious. Neptune however was a different kettle of fish. Every time I got close or thought I had found it and was about to up the magnification to truly identify it, the clouds seemed to pile in to deliberately stop me!

Well tonight, using the AR127L I finally managed to find and positively identify Neptune. After a little star hopping at a low mag I detected the tiniest blue grey disc. Playing with the focus the nearby stars came into sharp points but it remained as something just a fraction bigger. Adding more power up to around 200x it showed itself and although the seeing isn’t great tonight it was clearly a planet. So finally, the curse is lifted!

 

[Toxophilus]

Congratulations! I was please when I manged to image them earlier in the year and I was surprised to get them with a goto telescope, let alone star hopping to them!

Nice One

[laudropb]

Well done. It can be a tricky little blighter to find.

[John]

Congratulations on bagging Neptune - it can be a tricky blighter to nail

[chiltonstar]

Certainly not easy without some assistance in the form of GoTo or setting circles - well done!

Chris

[Pete Presland]

Congratulations on bagging the two outer gas giants. Uranus is a pretty easy pick, even in my 9x50 finder scope. Neptune was a much harder prospect, requiring a long star hop to find it.

[Dave In Vermont]

I cheated and used a goto-mount - and my 127mm F/9.3, to bag him.

Learned to use a new phrase - 'Ice-Blue.' While Uranus was 'Dutch Pea-Soup' green. Thank you for your 'cool' report on your hunt.

My two favorite planets to observe now.

Enjoy!

Dave

[billyharris72]

I also used a goto mount in the end - only to discover that it took me to the same target as my star hopping (the one I had concluded was not Neptune). Maybe the seeing was just bad, but I find it a much tougher target than Uranus. In my 150mm Mak I was getting a (slightly wobbly) star like pinpoint of light at x200.

Maybe I need to try again - perhaps I just fluked onto the wrong target.

[ShrewView]

4 hours ago, billyharris72 said:

I also used a goto mount in the end - only to discover that it took me to the same target as my star hopping (the one I had concluded was not Neptune). Maybe the seeing was just bad, but I find it a much tougher target than Uranus. In my 150mm Mak I was getting a (slightly wobbly) star like pinpoint of light at x200.

Maybe I need to try again - perhaps I just fluked onto the wrong target.

I did find it much tougher to get than Uranus. It's fainter, smaller and not as close to easily identified stars.

I've never really got on with the goto I've got on one of my scopes. Feels a bit like cheating too when you first look for something. I tend to use the binoculars first to rehearse my route and then try to replicate that in the scope. Takes longer but I think I learn a little bit along the way. 

Think now I've got all the planets I'll try Vesta or Ceres at some point!

[A budding astronomer]

Just going out to observe them now!