Advise on a new target.

[cletrac1922]

Scott, Heaven Above is another good tool for observing. Set your location prior to saving to favourites in explorer, as defaults to South Africa. http://www.heavens-above.com/

[Ricochet]

13 hours ago, Stu said:

Try it, this one works brilliantly, particularly in binoculars or a finder. Takes you straight there, no guessing  

I tried this and you're right, in the finder (5.5° FoV) it was quite easy. However, trying to do it as I would have had to the first time I ever looked for M81/82 without the finder (1.3° FoV) was not so easy. 

Having said that, my method of using guide stars to draw a cross on the sky and then putting the rdf just into in the lower left quadrant put M81 straight into the eyepiece. That's probably just practice though... 

[Dave In Vermont]

Here's a rather new venture being done as a labor-of-love: The DSO Browser. Just program it with your information (it will try to do so itself using your I.P. addy. from your computer if you have trouble), and it will create a login for you. It's totally free of cost, though donations are appreciated. So.....

https://dso-browser.com/

And there it is! Tell it the sort of things you'd like it to help you find - which you can change anytime - and away you'll go.

A great gadget!

Dave

[Galen Gilmore]

M35 is a really beatiful open cluster. It's really easy to find, and it's probably on your star app.

[Dave In Vermont]

I'll second M35, which is in Gemini, as a wonderful open-cluster. Very jewel-like which responds well to a slow increase of magnification. See what you think? Here's a chart from TheSkyX:

 

 

And a bit more power:

 

 

Have fun in leisure -

Dave

[Scott Brown]

On 3 March 2017 at 09:50, Dave In Vermont said:

Here's a rather new venture being done as a labor-of-love: The DSO Browser. Just program it with your information (it will try to do so itself using your I.P. addy. from your computer if you have trouble), and it will create a login for you. It's totally free of cost, though donations are appreciated. So.....

https://dso-browser.com/

And there it is! Tell it the sort of things you'd like it to help you find - which you can change anytime - and away you'll go.

A great gadget!

Dave

thanks for that Dave.... Very interesting