Ideal magnification for dso s .

[Krishnam kalra]

What should be the min magnification to see star clusters , nebulas or galaxy . I have 200mm 1200mm dob and a 30mm 2" ep which gives me 40x magn . Should i keep searching with it or should try with 1.25" ep . I have 20mm , 12.5 mm , 9mm 6.5mm ep (1.25") . 

[Buzzard75]

If you know where to look, what you're looking for and have decent skies, some globs can be seen with just a pair of 10x binoculars. If your eyes are really good and you have really dark skies, you might even be able to see them naked eye. Won't be much detail at lower magnification though. At 40x, it should be more than enough to see something like M13.

[Demonperformer]

It very much depends for which DSOs you are searching, but in general I would say lower magnification is better. Open star clusters tend to become less obvious as you lose surroundings (but conversely, smaller clusters do benefit from a bit more magnification). And with nebulae and galaxies, the light is spread out over a large area (low surface brightness) and a smaller magnification can help concentrate the light making it appear brighter. In addition, smaller magnification means that you can sweep more of the sky faster and is helpful for "star hopping".

What are you using to guide you to your target? Turn Left at Orion is a good source for some of the brighter objects.

 

[Krishnam kalra]

6 hours ago, Buzzard75 said:

If you know where to look, what you're looking for and have decent skies, some globs can be seen with just a pair of 10x binoculars. If your eyes are really good and you have really dark skies, you might even be able to see them naked eye. Won't be much detail at lower magnification though. At 40x, it should be more than enough to see something like M13.

I live in red zoned area of lp

[Stu]

3 minutes ago, Krishnam kalra said:

I live in red zoned area of lp

A 30mm eyepiece gives a 5mm exit pupil in your scope, and in heavy light pollution that will give a washed out image.

If you get your finder aligned accurately, then I would tend to use higher power as that should darken the sky background a bit whilst increasing the image scale.

[Waddensky]

What deep-sky objects did you try to find as yet? To locate them, a lower magnification is usually best - use your 20 and 30 mm eyepieces. When found, you can try higher magnifications to get the best view or to see the most details. Be sure to pick the right subjects: faint nebulae are very difficult to observe from light polluted areas without filters. Focus on the brighter open or gobular clusters as a start.

[JOC]

From one beginner to another, and it sounds like owning the same telescope I have so far found more success finding the smaller DSOs than the larger ones.  Still no sight of the veil, or andromeda, but I have seen the ring nebula M57, the catseye nebula NGC 6543 and a couple of the hercules globs.  I find them with about a 15-20mm EP in.  you have to kind of scan the area for the blob of light that somehow doesn't look exactly like a star, some are rather feint too, genuine feint grey fuzzies FGFs!  at lower mags even some of the globs seem to be just star like light points which are sort of 'not quite star sharp'.  Once you find a suspect, centre it and up the mag and you might be surprised what it resolves into.  It's a pity Orion isn't around atm as M42 is so easy to find and then you would see the sort of colour you are looking out for nebula wise.

The larger more disperse items I don't find because I think they are too large to see.

[Stu]

2 hours ago, JOC said:

The larger more disperse items I don't find because I think they are too large to see.

Two things here.

Large, faint nebulae are easily looked 'through' if using too narrow a field of view; you need the contrast at the edge of the object to pick it up properly.

Secondly the larger objects tend to be very diffuse and with low surface brightness which is easily washed out by light pollution. The Veil is a very nice target in a 4" widefield refractor at a dark site with an OIII filter. You can fit the East & West Veil plus Pickering's Triangle into a 3.7 degree field of view, one of my favourite sights.