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Messiers in Auriga


leo82

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Hi all, 

Last night I was looking for the 3 messiers in Auriga. I used the 25mm and then the Barlow. The 10mm is useless. I got a glimpse of m36 using averted vision but the other 2 were nowhere to be seen. What Aperture size and magnification is needed to reveal these gems?

Many thanks. 

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Curious. You should be OK with 6". How light polluted are your skies?

Using your 25mm will be the best bet for finding them. You are looking for very tight knit clusters of stars. You will know when you have got them. They aren't small and searching around with the 10mm will show such a small amount of sky, that the chances of missing them are high.

Paul

 

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Hmmm I was definitely in the right area, I was using stellarium Mobile to star hop and each grouping of stars in stellarium I could match up in the eyepiece. My scope is 5” and I don’t use the 10mm, just the 25mm and 2xbarlow. My skies do suffer light pollution. With m36 they seemed small, is this normal with this size eyepiece?

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 Under good conditions it can be seen naked eye. Looking with your 10x50s could give you the best view - and you can see a pair in the same field of view.  The moon is bright now, but the three are lovely clusters.

andrew

M36_Finder_Chart.png

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Something sounds a bit odd, a couple of nights back I was looking at M38 and I think M36 through binoculars and could just make both out as a slight blur by eye, M36 was not good/obvious. Really do need new eyes.

In a town where some of the lights go off at midnight and it was 03:00 - woke up and couldn't get back to sleep (damn it was cold outside). Have also seen them easily as eye ball objects when returning on a drive. Again binoculars were the instrument.

 

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I saw them for the first time last year. I also seemed to struggle a little bit and I think it took a couple of attempts. 

Only once I'd found them did I realise that I had been incredibly daft.... up until then, the only clusters I'd seen were the beehive and Pleiades. So I was looking for big, bright, spread out clusters. Because to my naive stargazing eyes, that's what open clusters were.

Now that I've become a bit more educated, I'm looking forward to visiting them again this year and trying to appreciate them a bit more.

They were smaller and more subtle than I'd expected. Maybe you're making a similar assumption? Just keep trying, you'll get them!

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23 minutes ago, leo82 said:

Ah a funny or not so funny story about my bins, I used to keep them under my passenger seat and that’s where they’re were when I p/x my car.

Well it's coming to that time of year for Christmas gifts - perhaps drop a few of hints :happy11:

andrew

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These are free, print out wonderfully and they're easy to use.  http://www.star-shine.ch/astro/messiercharts/messierTelrad.htm

The Auriga clusters don't respond well to moon light or light pollution. its a neat trick to get M38, pull the Dob down to get M36 , then down and towards you to get M37. Easiest way to get M38 is half way along the line ( looks like the long side of a kite) from iota to nu.Under dark skies such star hopping is quite easy , M38 being visible by eye,

Nick.

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