Neptune in 15x70s

[Mr niall]

Finding Neptune is turning into a bit of a crusade....

I keep going out too late it seems and its dipped below the horizon. Finally last night, I managed to star hop my way there and eventually found Hydor; but couldn't really see Neptune... I mean, I think there was something in the exact place that neptune was supposed to be but it was so faint and whispy there was no colour or definition at all. From what I'm reading, Neptune should be a reasonably manageable target in my bins, or am I expecting too much? It was fairly low in the sky I guess. Maybe the cold didnt help! Has anyone tried neptune in 15x70s in decidedly average skies?

Thanks all.

[John]

I could see Neptune last night with the 6x30 finder on my scope. Just about !

It should appear as a magnitude 7 star in your 15x70 binoculars. Fairly easy to spot with that aperture, when you work out where to look.

To see the disk I needed at least 100x with my ED120 refractor and 200x to make it clearly different from stars for the non-astronomers that I was showing it to last night !

With the scope it was clearly pale blue in colour. The tint might not be so clear with binoculars.

[Mr niall]

5 minutes ago, John said:

I could see Neptune last night with the 6x30 finder on my scope. Just about !

It should appear as a magnitude 7 star in your 15x70 binoculars. Fairly easy to spot with that aperture, when you work out where to look.

To see the disk I needed at least 100x with my ED120 refractor and 200x to make it clearly different from stars for the non-astronomers that I was showing it to last night !

With the scope it was clearly pale blue in colour. The tint might not be so clear with binoculars.

Thanks John - that doesnt sound like my experience at all! To be honest I couldnt really pick Hydor out without my bins. Having just checked, Hydor looks to be about +4, so that in itself might explain why I couldnt see Neptune. I should see the colour though ok in my bins though shouldnt I?

My goodness... this is turning into an epic, I spent about a week looking in the wrong place and I had such high hopes last night!

[Knighty2112]

Here’s the view with 15x70 binos from 10:15pm last night. I’ve tried to make the stars appear close to correct magnitudes in relation to Neptune. Should be doable with your binos, but most likely you were hampered by the low altitude seen at in the murk low down.

[Mr niall]

5 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Here’s the view with 15x70 binos from 10:15pm last night. I’ve tried to make the stars appear close to correct magnitudes in relation to Neptune. Should be doable with your binos, but most likely you were hampered by the low altitude seen at in the murk low down.

 

Thanks pal thats really useful

[Swithin StCleeve]

I saw Neptune through my 10X50 bins about six weeks ago. From my notes I see I had to find Hydor, then underneath a 'Bootes type shape to the left, and a squashed roof shape above it'. I know that sounds mad, but it's the way I was able to find it. It was a faint very pale bluish dot. And this was in the countryside (ten miles from a city). It's an elusive [removed word]!
From White Dwarf's picture, it looks like it's moved closer to Hydor than I remember it.

[Moonshane]

Seeing it is one thing at that magnimagnification but realising you are seeing it is more difficult ?

[John]

On 01/12/2017 at 10:30, Mr niall said:

Thanks John - that doesnt sound like my experience at all! To be honest I couldnt really pick Hydor out without my bins. Having just checked, Hydor looks to be about +4, so that in itself might explain why I couldnt see Neptune. I should see the colour though ok in my bins though shouldnt I?

My goodness... this is turning into an epic, I spent about a week looking in the wrong place and I had such high hopes last night!

The colour is not very strong - just a very pale tint and I think peoples eyes vary in colour perception. The younger eyes seem to to better !

While Neptune can be seen with binoculars and optical finders it really does not look any different from any other magnitude 7 point of light at low magnifications. You just get the satisfaction of knowing that he particular "dot" of light is Neptune

With a scope at high power the disk is just about discernable - rather like that "pale blue dot" image of Earth that Carl Sagen so memorably commented on:

 

[Swithin StCleeve]

When I found it, I had to use Stellarium to get my map first, then look at it for a bit to let the shapes sink in. 'Roof shape', 'triangle', that kind of thing. When you see a map in a magazine, it's very often not what you see through your binos. I've gone out countless times with a map of where Uranus or Neptune is, from Astronomy Now, and not found a bean.

Last Tuesday at a society observation session, I had Uranus on my hit list, but with a 70% lit waxing moon, I couldn't even see Pisces! Luckily a couple of observers had GoTo scopes, and I got to see a small blue disc. It was lovely!

 

 

[Stu]

I found it in 8x42s under quite poor skies a while back, read down in this post and you will find the description. Wasn't easy by any means, obviously having better skies makes it significantly easier!

 

[Stu]

13 minutes ago, Swithin StCleeve said:

When you see a map in a magazine, it's very often not what you see through your binos. I've gone out countless times with a map of where Uranus or Neptune is, from Astronomy Now, and not found a bean.

That's where I find apps like SkySafari so useful. You can set the correct field of view and limiting magnitude that you see through the binos and everything becomes much easier to identify. My pea sized brain has always struggled to translate a black on white map to a white on black reality, so a proper representation really helps me.

[John]

I find Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel quite accurate with regard to locating these planets. Cartes du Ciel seems to get their positions of their moons more accuratley than Stellarium though. I do now have SkySafari Pro but I'm finding "old habits die hard"

[Piero]

I saw Neptune through 10x50 bins a few times. Using a 10x24 bins is a bit trickier because of the reduced fov. With my TV60 I was able to spot a small disc shape after pushing the magnification above ~180x.