Newbie going quackers trying to find Wild Ducks M11

[Apollo_95]

Ive tried to see M11 Wild Duck cluster on  2-3 occasions now with my Skywatcher 130P Heritage with no joy so far. Its meant to be one of the easier open clusters to find so any help/advice would be much appreciated. I view from my back garden with usual town light pollution. I can see Altair, Delta & Lambda with the naked eye & M11 should be a tad south west of Lambda through my DOB. Its at this point that Im having probs. As my DOB shows everything upside down & back to front I was expecting to see the 2 guiding stars slightly up & to the left of Lambda however Im seeing nothing in that direction. There are 2 stars to the southwest of Lambda so I thought I was getting bearings wrong. However I see no cluster in their direction either. Im using Turn Left at Orion as a guide so I have a rough idea of what to expect but Im seeing nothing even close to what the book says. Am i getting my north/east/south/west mixed up? Turn Left at Orion says a medium/low power eyepiece of approx 75x mag is best. Im using the 10mm eyepiece that came with the scope which gives 65x. Would the 25mm yield better results? Would using a light guard for the extendable truss improve how much I see? On the nights Ive been out there has been no moon so I suspect im looking in the wrong direction rather than it being a light pollution issue. From the reviews I read before getting the scope other users seemed to see clusters OK. I will be getting better eyepieces in the future but I was hoping to see some with the eyepieces provided. Thanks in advance. 

[Charic]

12 minutes ago, Apollo_95 said:

I view from my back garden with usual town light pollution

Getting away from any light pollution helps enormously.

When a way from home, my scope see's 'everything' that the scope and my eyes are capable of seeing under real-world conditions, and having the right seeing conditions.

From home I struggled at first, but I'm finding the longer I look, the more I can see, even managing to pick out galaxies around Ursa Major, but its taken some time to get to this level of observation.

As for scope image orientation, that comes together with time and practice, the more you practice, the better is becomes.

Keep at it, your not doing anything wrong, its a learning curve.

[John]

Low magnification is usually better when you are trying to find something. You can then switch to higher magnifications if the target needs it. A 10mm eyepiece shows such a small piece of the sky that it's not much use in the finding process. When you have found the cluster though, the 10mm might be more use to actually view it in more detail.

Heres a star map that might help:

 

[Moonshane]

M11  is just visible in a finderscope so try that. To get the map to the same orientation as your scope just turn it upside down ?

[Apollo_95]

Thanks all. Clear skies forecast for tonight so will start off with the 25mm & take it from there

[Pondus]

If you can see Beta scuti naked eye, I find it easier to go from there to M11.

 

Rune

[Ouroboros]

I find familiarising myself with the region of interest through binoculars helpful when searching for an object difficult to find by telescope.  

[Nyctimene]

13 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

I find familiarising myself with the region of interest through binoculars helpful when searching for an object difficult to find by telescope.  

Excellent advice; do this and try to locate the "sickle" asterism, formed by the stars g Aql, h Aql, Lambda Aql (the vertex point), i Aql, Eta Sct, in an area of about 3,5°, half the diameter of an average binocular's True Field of View (TFOV). Follow this arc further downwards for about 2 degrees, and you'll land spot on at M 11. A very reliable star hopping routine; you'll like it. Years later, you will be able to find M 11 within half a minute ( with bins, some seconds...), so don't hesitate, and go on; it's part of the learning curve as Charic said above, enjoy, and good luck!

Stephan

[Apollo_95]

19 hours ago, John said:

Low magnification is usually better when you are trying to find something. You can then switch to higher magnifications if the target needs it. A 10mm eyepiece shows such a small piece of the sky that it's not much use in the finding process. When you have found the cluster though, the 10mm might be more use to actually view it in more detail.

Heres a star map that might help:

 

Got it with the lower mag 25mm!! It looked like a smudge of hazy light through the eyepiece but I definitely got it. It was a clear night but not that dark due to light pollution, making it hard to pick out Lambda with the naked eye. The 10mm didnt help much after I found it but I was just pleased to find it. The 25mm definitely made it easier to find so thank you!! It may not have been spectacular but its given me the confidence to go on & look for other clusters. I am going to look into making a blackout guard to go round the extendable truss which should improve things. Thanks again.

[Stub Mandrel]

21 hours ago, Moonshane said:

To get the map to the same orientation as your scope just turn it upside down

+1 to that.

It's amazing how none of the books tell you to do it.

Right angle finders are designed to make life difficult!

Easiest way around the sky is straight through finder and map upside down.

[Moonshane]

I meant in the scope.  ? I like raci  finders. Is a straight finder not upside down and left right reversed? I find that even more confusing.

[Apollo_95]

33 minutes ago, Moonshane said:

I meant in the scope.  ? I like raci  finders. Is a straight finder not upside down and left right reversed? I find that even more confusing.

Ive got a correct vision red dot finder which is very good. Its when I navigate away from that point through the eyepiece that I need to remember that north is down not up & east is right not left!

[Moonshane]

Yep when looking through the eyepiece of a newt, turn your map upside down. My star hopping guide might help.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Moonshane said:

I meant in the scope.  ? I like raci  finders. Is a straight finder not upside down and left right reversed? I find that even more confusing.

RACI is best of all and easiest to use, using the RACI prism with the C90 made huge improvement is usability for me.

Straight finder is upside down and left-right reversed, but that's the same as 180-degree rotated so a map works if rotated.

A right angle finder is awful (to me) right way up but left-right reversed so DEC/ALT works like normal but RA/AZ works backwards. Try mentally shifting from a map to the view through a right-angle finder - Brain frazzling!

[Apollo_95]

1 hour ago, Moonshane said:

Yep when looking through the eyepiece of a newt, turn your map upside down. My star hopping guide might help.

 

Yeah I read this thread after I sent original post. Very helpful

[Stub Mandrel]

I should make it clera taht what I'm calling a right angle finder is a 'star diagonal' not a 'right angle corrected image' - RACI finder.

[ollypenrice]

On 20/08/2017 at 21:15, Ouroboros said:

I find familiarising myself with the region of interest through binoculars helpful when searching for an object difficult to find by telescope.  

Excellent advice. 

The quality of the EP won't have any effect on whether or not you can see the object. It will just refine the quality of the view. It really does help to have a very widefield EP with a Dob though. A long focal length 2 inch ultra wide is a huge asset for finding things.

A Telred reflex sight is also a boon. Its large red circle provides a sense of scale. You first place a 'virtual Telred over the target on the chart/planeatrium and then note its position relative to adjacent stars. You then replicate that position on the sky with the Telrad itself.

Olly

[JOC]

Apollo_95 I made a shield for my truss tube - you might be interested in what I did:

 

 

[Paz]

If you are interested down the line in changing your finding set up theres many set ups but one good one to consider is a 90 degree right angled correct image finder scope plus a red dot finder or telrad. The red dot I only use to make sure the raci finder is in the right place then I do all my finding with the raci finder with everything like it looks in the maps. As long as I take time at the start to make sure the raci finder is accurately lined up with the scope this will get me right on top of  most targets without needing to use the main scope for finding.

I orient my maps like this,... Holding my map normally and facing south, if I turn east I rotate my map left like a steering wheel as I turn, and if I turn right I rotate it right. So looking west it is on its right hand edge and by the time you get around to north your map is upside down.