Elusive Nebulae - Help!

[Raph-in-the-sky]

Hello Stargazers,

I am pretty new to this hobby and I love it so far.

During the few nights I managed to go observing I saw some planets and some DSOs that are easy to find (Pleiades, M13, Andromeda, Albireo, M15,...) which was great!

Naturally I wanted to try the other type of DSO that are Nebulae, so I turned my telescope towards cygnus. I tried seeing the North American Nebula and the Veil Nebula for hours ... to no avail. Then I tried the planetary nebula in Lyra with the same results.

I was under a clear, pretty dark country-side sky, was using a skywatcher 130/900 EQ 2 with a 15mm BST starguider/Super 25mm wide angle long eye relief (the one you get with the telescope that is not so "super") and an Explore Scientific UHC filter.

Why can't I find those? What am I missing?

Thank you in advance for the advice,

Clear Skies,

Raph

 

 

 

 

 

[Buzzard75]

Nebulae are generally pretty diffuse with their brightness being spread over a large area. There are a few exceptions of course. Planetary nebula tend to be brighter, but they are considerably smaller. The Ring Nebula and Dumbell Nebula should be fairly easy to spot in dark skies. Orion is of course huge and bright. You may be able to pick up either Trifid or Lagoon this time of year. Don't necessarily look for the cloud or the color of the gas and dust as you won't see any color at all and rarely will you see any bright fuzziness from the gas or dust structure. You also need to look for the dark lanes that give those nebula structure. From our vantage point here on Earth, we will never be able to see those nebula like we can with the likes of Hubble or even through astrophotography. Not to be too negative, but we need to temper our expectations and those of others when we look through the eyepiece.

[Raph-in-the-sky]

9 minutes ago, Buzzard75 said:

Nebulae are generally pretty diffuse with their brightness being spread over a large area. There are a few exceptions of course. Planetary nebula tend to be brighter, but they are considerably smaller. The Ring Nebula and Dumbell Nebula should be fairly easy to spot in dark skies. Orion is of course huge and bright. You may be able to pick up either Trifid or Lagoon this time of year. Don't necessarily look for the cloud or the color of the gas and dust as you won't see any color at all and rarely will you see any bright fuzziness from the gas or dust structure. You also need to look for the dark lanes that give those nebula structure. From our vantage point here on Earth, we will never be able to see those nebula like we can with the likes of Hubble or even through astrophotography. Not to be too negative, but we need to temper our expectations and those of others when we look through the eyepiece.

Thanks for the advice. I don't have great expectations (especially with my set up) but I was hoping to locate them at least.

What should I be looking for if I can't see some kind of dust or gas clouds? What could I try to improve my chances of spotting them?

Since Orion is only visible in late night/early morning at this time of year (and I m not a morning person), what should I be looking for? What would be the easiest one to spot?

 

[Buzzard75]

Assuming you have some sort or finder and that everything is aligned correctly, you should be able to see the Ring Nebula with either the 15 or 25. Of course this is assuming you have minimal light pollution. It will look like a faint hazy smudge in the eyepiece. The Dumbell Nebula will be larger than the Ring, but may not necessarily be any brighter. The Lagoon and Trifid Nebula are probably some of the brighter emission nebula at this time of year. Possibly the Omega Nebula. Again, they are still going to be very faint and they'll look like a wisp of cloud in the eyepiece. Those would benefit more from the 25mm than the 15.

[catburglar]

The ring nebula is very small, and may still just look like a star even with the 15mm eyepiece(60x magnification) if you look closely, you might see it as slightly fuzzy compared to stars of similar brightness. 

The dumbell nebula should be obviously non stellar, although it doesn’t look dumbbell shaped to my eyes in a small scope -  it looks rectangular.

My advice would be to double check you’re in the right field- it helps if you can print some charts customised for your specific location and eyepiece and look for some through the eyepiece sketches  on these forums- they’ll give you a much better idea of what they’ll look like

 

[Marvin Jenkins]

I love the statement “I am not a morning person” I am quite new to this as well (two years) but my main lesson has been that the skies and weather don’t work around you.

If what you need to see is visible at 11pm or 5pm with clear skies then you need to be up.

I am a natural 9 to 10 hours a night sleeper and hate the alarm clock. But if I had not got out of bed at 2am into a freezing garden in winter I would not have the smile on my face knowing what the Orion nebular looks like, or seeing the Crab neb for the first time.

This thing we do does not come with comforts, that’s part of the pleasure of discovery. Just because it has already been seen, photographed and studied by many, it is a first for your eye, it’s your discovery.

From the list of what you have seen you are a star in the making. Study what you see, make notes, keep a diary, post your observations here. You have no idea how informative your posts are to beginners joining this pastime who have hundreds of questions.

Keep up the good work and I have only one bit of advice as far as equipment. I still use a 130 newt which came on an eq2. I have moved to an eq5 mount and the difference is incredible. Same scope whole different ball game.

If you can afford it scale up the mount, your scope is good enough for now. The old saying “no mount, no scope” is one of the many things I have learnt from the good members of SGL.

Marvin

[Stu]

The Veil and North America Nebula are very different challenges to the Ring Nebula. The first two you really do need a dark sky but the Ring should be quite easy even with some light pollution. I have seen it in a 60mm scope from near Heathrow, 4.8 ish NELM.

I'm fairly sure you would see it if in the right place. As others have said, it is small and can be mistaken for a star at low powers, but at x100 plus you will see a lovely ring shape, like a tiny smoke ring.

For the Veil and NAN, you really need a motionless night, good dark adaptation and your lowest power eyepiece. Centre on 52 Cygni and look for the brighter part of the Witch's Broom which runs right through it. Go from there. These objects are huge and faint, whereas the Ring is small and relatively bright so you need to understand what you are looking for. At high power you will look right through the Veil and NAN.

[carastro]

I am just wondering whether you are actually pointing in the right place, only a small discrepancy and you can miss target's altogether.   You have an EQ2 so I am guessing that this is manual.  

Dumbbell nebula and ring nebula should be easily see-able even from LP skies.

Dumbbell will be a fuzzy apple core shape and the ring will be a ring.  But don't expect to see colour.  The ring is very small.  

Carole 

 

Edited July 18, 2019 by carastro