Going to attempt to track down Neptune tonight with my XT8...any advice?

[MKHACHFE]

Hi all, 

 

As the title says, tonight I am planning on trying to locate Neptune from my Bortle 5 garden. Here is a Stellarium screenshot of its location at the ideal time i will be out there. The moon may be an issue and is the reason i am not going after Uranus instead. So, do you guys have any advice i can take on board? Will it be possible to locate with my setup below? I'm pretty good at locating things using the RA finder and Stellarium.  Thanks in advance.

 

XT8

25mm Plossi

2x Barlow

10mm Baader 

UHC filter

RA 9x50 finder

[John]

I got it earlier this evening with my 12 inch dob but its visible in the 50mm finder. You need quite a bit of magnification to see that it is a disk rather than an point of light - 150x or more ?

Tonight it is close to Phi Aquarius.

At 450x I could see Neptunes largest and brightest moon, Triton as well.

As long as you can find Phi Aquarius, finding Neptune should be relatively straightforward.

[MKHACHFE]

13 minutes ago, John said:

I got it earlier this evening with my 12 inch dob but its visible in the 50mm finder. You need quite a bit of magnification to see that it is a disk rather than an point of light - 150x or more ?

Tonight it is close to Phi Aquarius.

At 450x I could see Neptunes largest and brightest moon, Triton as well.

As long as you can find Phi Aquarius, finding Neptune should be relatively straightforward.

Congrats on your success this evening, i hope i get it as well tomorrow. Thanks for your reply and advice John. I REALLY want to go out now...but i think my wife will kill me if i start moving the XT8 to the garden at this time. 

[Ibbo!]

I got it the other night with the C11, the idea was to try and image it but It was really too close to the moon.

It showed a very small blue disc with a 7mm eyepiece giving approx 400x. with the 20mm it showe as a good colour contrast "double" with Phi.

later i also nabbed Uranus slightly bigger and a pale grren/blue disc.

 

I really must do more visual with the SCT as the streetlamp does not really effect the planets and doubles.

[MKHACHFE]

Spotted it.

OK, so, it was a gorgeous clear night again tonight and i went out at 10.10pm, intent on hunting down Neptune. I had found it by 10.15. Surprisingly easy to locate with the help of Stellarium and my lovely 9x50 RA finder.  I used my 25mm plossi to centre what i was certain was Neptune, then switched to my 10mm Baader Classic Ortho and got confirmation. The slightest hint of blue was seen, or imagined. Then i added the 2x Barlow and after having some trouble focusing, I'm almost certain i saw a tiny bit of the planet disc and possibly a bit of bulge from Triton. 

Of course, I'm happy i got to spot it and marvel in what i was looking at from my little garden in the UK, but i was hoping for a bit more of a challenge. Maybe half an hour or an hour of star hoping and searching...this was way too easy thanks to Stellarium. 😄

 

And when i looked away from the eyepiece a gorgeous meteor with a glittering trail flew by overhead...the icing on the cake for tonight's brief session. 

 

Cheers