Help me find M13... please

[markse68]

Third night in a row and I just can’t find the Hercules cluster and it’s driving me nuts. Trouble is the lp is so bad I can’t make out Hercules constellation at all. But I can see Vega and Arcturus and according to sky safari it should be almost on a line between them a bit closer than half way from Vega. Scan as I might it’s not there though! What should I be looking for- does it need power to see it as a cluster? Would it just look like a star through a 40mm ep (40x mag)?

Please help me find it 😊 Thanks!

[Sunshine]

If light pollution is so bad as to obstruct the stars that make up Hercules then i'll bet you won't be able to make out M13, it should appear as a fuzzy blob sort of.

Some scopes are better than others at dealing with light pollution (refractors) but, without the stars in Hercules to use as a guide (unless using a computerized scope) 

it will be a heck of a tough go finding M13, a faint object at that, through such heavy light pollution, i hope others can offer some tips that may help. Deep sky objects

should be viewed under darker skies as they are faint to begin with and light pollution obstructs them far more than planets for example.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Sunshine

[markse68]

Thanks Sunshine, I thought it was meant to be naked eye visible but yes it is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack blindfolded 😞 I have managed to find the ring nebula but that part of the sky isn’t as badly affected by the lp being closer to zenith. Would you say it’s dimmer than the ring neb?

[PEMS]

Guessing your light pollution is bad since you give London as a location. I was out looking for the same target a few evenings back and having similar troubles. I could not easily pick out the square of Hercules.

A check on Skysafari and what I realised was that if I took an imaginary line from Deneb to Vega and continued on then this line passed through the square of Hercules. I think that M13 is on the furthest side along this line.

M13 is generally just visible in binoculars, although when I tried it was not easy. I am not entirely sure I picked it out, think I did however a littl;e questionable. Sky conditions likely contribute to easy or difficult. And light pollution will I expect only get worse.

[Sunshine]

24 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Would you say it’s dimmer than the ring neb?

Looking up their apparent magnitudes i see that the M57 is +8.8 Mag while M13 is +5.8 making M13 brighter than M57 (lower number is brighter).

Edited August 27, 2019 by Sunshine

[Captain Scarlet]

Not sure where you are in London but I find it quite easy to find M13 with 10x50 binoculars from Sunbury-On-Thames. It’s always most difficult finding and recognizing it the first time, but thereafter it’s almost as though you can’t miss it.

It is a naked eye object from dark sites but definitely nowhere near London.

You need to be able to find the “square” of Hercules, and look up where on the perimeter of that “square“ it sits. Then just scan around that area with the bins.

Basically M13 sits nearly equally between two stars of equal brightness, the three objects making a flattish triangle. It looks like a fuzzy blob compared to the stars. To see it as an actual  cluster of stars you will then need a darker site and a telescope.

one of my favourite objects

good luck, Magnus

[Stub Mandrel]

Crikey, I can see the 'keystone' fine here and have never had trouble seeing M13 through a scope. It is just a small fuzzy ball at low mags.

14 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

M57 is around Mag +8.8 while M13 is +5.3 making M13 fainter than M57 (Lower number is brighter)

Lower number is brighter - but that makes M13 MUCH brighter than M57 - it is one of the easiest DSOs.

BUT it is about 2 magnitudes fainter than  the stars in hercules and slightly diffuse.

[markse68]

Thanks to all I have found it! Not what I was expecting at all and pure luck I think that I stumbled on it but yes a very faint fuzzy from here in Plumstead- less defined than the ring but with averted vision I can make out it is thousands of tiny faint stars. If they were a bit brighter they’d be mesmerising I’m sure. Anyway- well chuffed and thanks again 😊

[Gfamily]

The trouble with extended objects under LP is that they just lose definition.

Here's a mock up of how M13 looked two weeks apart from (1) a dark sky site in Wales and (2) my back garden under an urban sky

[Sunshine]

16 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Thanks to all I have found it! Not what I was expecting at all and pure luck I think that I stumbled on it but yes a very faint fuzzy from here in Plumstead- less defined than the ring but with averted vision I can make out it is thousands of tiny faint stars. If they were a bit brighter they’d be mesmerising I’m sure. Anyway- well chuffed and thanks again 😊

YAY I’m happy you found it!

[markse68]

Clouds rolling in  from the west- just enough time to have another go at Pi Aquilae ( still not convinced I’m splitting it). And a few minutes on my new favourite the double cluster- real sense of textured clouds of star dust even from here in se London! Beautiful 😊 Time to pack up now. 

[Rob Sellent]

Nice to hear you spotted M13, Mark You've done a good job because finding and viewing DSOs is not easy. With a nod to sky glow and aperture, I think the other big factor which dictates what we are able to find and observe boils down to experience. With a little practice it's surprising how quickly things improve and how quickly we come to think how bright those Messiers are 😋.

I guess it's around the 8" - 10" aperture that globulars really start to blossom. But whatever the aperture used there's a real pleasure viewing these types of DSOs. Just blows my mind to think that those photons from some 300,000 burning stars that found your eye tonight in some darkish pocket of London began their timeless voyage some 20,000 years ago while Earth was in an ice age. As a breed, we're still scratching around with our tools of bone and stone. There are no domestic animals; other than ourselves, we have no fury friends to speak to, no pet dogs, no pet cats! Metal work, the bow and arrow, agriculture, writing, not even the wheel, have been invented yet

I think such things help put our human notions of history and its preoccupations into perspective. In a sense, something like M13 shows just how small we really are but in like manner just how much we have grown .

[Mike_S]

I’ve been using this website to find DSO’s for the first time. Very helpful. I too sometimes struggle to make out Hercules though. It looked a lot better in my 12” dob compared to my 10”. 

https://themcdonalds.net/richard/wp/finding-m13/

Edited August 27, 2019 by Mike_S

[markse68]

It’s funny- once I found it I could then just about make out the stars of the  “square” of Hercules but only with the perspective of knowing where m13 is 😂 The trouble with the phone apps is without that perspective I don’t get a feeling of scale at all a lot of the time when the key stars are so dim. 

Thanks Mike- I’ll look to that site for the next one- looks very useful. I determined at the start I didn’t want goto as I wanted to learn the Sky so I guess I’m stuck doing it the hard way 😉 

Rob that is pretty profound isn’t it! I like thinking about things like that. It’s pretty amazing that I could cry for help from the middle of Plumstead common on a Tuesday evening  and receive support real-time from folks who actually could offer that help as well! 😊

[NGC 1502]

 

If you live in London then you may like to go along to Baker Street Astronomers who meet in Regents Park.

Most astronomy groups I’ve come across are very willing to help, and as they observe under London skies they should be a valuable source of assistance.

Hoping you progress with astronomy, a fascinating lifetime hobby 👍

Ed.

[Raph-in-the-sky]

9 hours ago, markse68 said:

Clouds rolling in  from the west- just enough time to have another go at Pi Aquilae ( still not convinced I’m splitting it). And a few minutes on my new favourite the double cluster- real sense of textured clouds of star dust even from here in se London! Beautiful 😊 Time to pack up now. 

If you like splitting double, you should try Epsilon Lyrae (just next to Vega). Magnify it a bit you ll see 2 stars, magnify it more and you should be able to split those 2 stars into 4!

Amazing sight!

[markse68]

Yes indeed Raph- I looked at the double double last night as well 😊 I’m more confident I’m splitting them there as they split in different directions so it’s clearer- I have a bit of an issue with astigmatism at high powers on bright stars that makes them all look like doubles 😳 but I’m hoping to remedy that soon 🤞

[markse68]

 

1 hour ago, NGC 1502 said:

 

If you live in London then you may like to go along to Baker Street Astronomers who meet in Regents Park.

 

Thanks Ed, I’ve got Flamsteed as my local society but they don’t meet for night time obs  till a bit later in the year- maybe next month actually 🤔 and I’ll definitely be going along to their public meets 

[Mr niall]

Good work pal, M13 is a great one definitely one of the best out there. 

Now you’ve bagged M13 next try M92 it’s quite close.

If you’ve got the hang of Cygnus try M29 too, not as impressive but quite bright and easy to find.

[markse68]

Thanks mr Niall- will give them a go next 👍

[Stu]

13 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Lower number is brighter - but that makes M13 MUCH brighter than M57 - it is one of the easiest DSOs.

Brighter but much bigger. This is where surface brightness comes into play.

M57 is 3' x 2.4', mag 8.8 and a surface brightness of 19.6. M13 is mag 5.8, but is 20' across so has a lower surface brightness of 20.9 making it harder to pick out of the LP. I've seen M57 in a 60mm scope from quite light polluted skies 

[Stub Mandrel]

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Brighter but much bigger. This is where surface brightness comes into play.

M57 is 3' x 2.4', mag 8.8 and a surface brightness of 19.6. M13 is mag 5.8, but is 20' across so has a lower surface brightness of 20.9 making it harder to pick out of the LP. I've seen M57 in a 60mm scope from quite light polluted skies 

True. Lets do a 'vlaiv' style calculation...

The difference is 3 magnitudes = 2.514^3 = ~16 times brighter

Area of M57 ~ 7.2, let's call it 7 to allow for the hole!

Area of M13  = 3 x 10^2 = 300

Ratio of areas 300/7 = 42

Ratio of brightness per unit area 42/16 = 2.6 = 1 magnitude

 

So in practice on a 'magnitude per unit surface area' basis M57 is one magnitude brighter. I'd guess that means you have fairly narrow range of sky brightnesses where you can see one and not the other, so worth trying again on good clear nights.

Aslo, try low magnification! M13 is visible naked eye but M57 is not because they both effectively become point sources.

[Stu]

26 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

True. Lets do a 'vlaiv' style calculation...

The difference is 3 magnitudes = 2.514^3 = ~16 times brighter

Area of M57 ~ 7.2, let's call it 7 to allow for the hole!

Area of M13  = 3 x 10^2 = 300

Ratio of areas 300/7 = 42

Ratio of brightness per unit area 42/16 = 2.6 = 1 magnitude

 

So in practice on a 'magnitude per unit surface area' basis M57 is one magnitude brighter. I'd guess that means you have fairly narrow range of sky brightnesses where you can see one and not the other, so worth trying again on good clear nights.

Aslo, try low magnification! M13 is visible naked eye but M57 is not because they both effectively become point sources.

Well the difference is actually 20.9-19.6 = 1.3, so your approximation was close.

It's true that M13 is still fairly bright and visible under reasonably light polluted skies once you find it! M57 can be seen more easily but needs higher power to tell it is not a star.

[KingNothing13]

Good job finding it.

I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to try and observe when they skies are like that.  a GOTO scope would be great in that situation, but would still need to be aligned, somehow (I think).

[markse68]

It was very frustrating indeed but it’s true what they say- once you find these things the first time it gets much easier. I guess it’s knowing what to look for and remembering roughly where but I’ve had no issues finding it very quickly every night since. Also found Dumbell but it’s just an ill defined quite large grey blur. I think I definitely need an oiii filter and darker skies as I can’t see a trace of the Veil or North America...