Best EP for the Leo Trio

[Nick Sargeant]

Hello,

hopefully will be clear enough skies tonight in north Cornwall.  I'm going to try and find the Leo trio with my 200p.

not observed these before.  Was wandering what the best EP will be please?..

thanks

Nick

 

[Steve Clay]

I'm in Falmouth and will be looking around Leo with my Ed120 all setup ready to go.

[miguel87]

Os it the dobsonian or on an EQ mount?

I have the 200p explorer on eq, with thay setup my 20mm eyepiece frames them pretty well with room to spare. Probably get away with down to about 15mm depending on your AFOV.

[Nick Sargeant]

Sorry, it's dobsonian

thanks

 

[miguel87]

1 minute ago, Nick Sargeant said:

Sorry, it's dobsonian

thanks

 

So you will get a bit more magnification than me for any particular eyepiece. I would start with something in the 18-24mm range and go from there 👍

Of course if you have any super wide angle lenses you could zoom in further and still keep all 3 in frame.

[John]

 You want something that will show a true field of around 1.2 degrees. So a 20mm or 24mm SWA type eyepiece would do the job. Or a 30/32mm plossl.

 

[miguel87]

4 minutes ago, John said:

 You want something that will show a true field of around 1.2 degrees. So a 20mm or 24mm SWA type eyepiece would do the job. Or a 30/32mm plossl.

 

Yes my error, I was using my 32mm not my 20mm. Good job I record details 😁

Edited April 23, 2020 by miguel87

[Nick Sargeant]

Thanks for this everyone.

being a novice I only have the following EP's

super 25 wide angle (came with telescope)

super 10 ( came with telescope)

celestron x-cel lax 8

starguider ED 18mm

so hoping then that the 25 and 18 should bu useful?

[Dr Strange]

Yes, the 25 and 18 will do the trick. 

[miguel87]

3 minutes ago, Dr Strange said:

Yes, the 25 and 18 will do the trick. 

Yep you should just squeeze them all in the BST starguider. This only shows two because it has to be centred on one. The third is above.

[Nick Sargeant]

Wow,

bring on the darkness

 

[miguel87]

2 minutes ago, Nick Sargeant said:

Wow,

bring on the darkness

 

The starguiders are great too as I'm sure you have heard. I love my 12mm 😁

[Dr Strange]

15 minutes ago, Nick Sargeant said:

Wow,

bring on the darkness

 

Yeah. Pity I won't be able to get it. I am in a Bortle 7/8 transition zone.  No joy for me until the QT ends and I can get to dark skies...

[Nick Sargeant]

 Just had to educate myself on Bortle.. Another lesson learned..thanks Dr Strange

 

[miguel87]

2 minutes ago, Nick Sargeant said:

 Just had to educate myself on Bortle.. Another lesson learned..thanks Dr Strange

 

It's a good tool to use, when I first found out I was bortle 4 I though ok, that's pointless info!

But it's good for planning trips, if I see some accomodation or a campsite that sells itself as having dark skies I just find it on the light pollution map and can compare, if it's also 4 probably not worth the trip. If its 3 or better 2 I'm in!

Dont think I have ever been in a bortle 1. Unless camping in the Grand Canyon perhaps. Wasnt too into astronomy then tho.

[John]

Bear in mind that under less than dark skies, the 3rd member of the trio can be tough to spot. It is quite a bit fainter than the other two.

 

[jock1958]

1 hour ago, Steve Clay said:

I'm in Falmouth and will be looking around Leo with my Ed120 all setup ready to go.

I’m liking the map holder what a great idea 👍

[John]

Well I hope your skies in Cornwall are clearer than mine here in Somerset !

I can see stars but there is quite a lot of thin hazy cloud about which does not help with galaxies one bit. I've just about managed to spot M66 and M65 with my 100mm refractor but I suspect NGC 3628 is beyond the reach of my scope under the conditions here tonight.

I'll go back to observing double stars !

 

[Dr Strange]

1 hour ago, Nick Sargeant said:

 Just had to educate myself on Bortle.. Another lesson learned..thanks Dr Strange

 

Cheers. Another great resource for planning things out is www.tonightssky.com I use this site to plan out observing sessions. I use a .csv export then open it in Excel. After that I cut out all columns except for Cat 1, Cat 2, Type, Magnitude, Constellation and Common Name so that it fits on one page instead of dribbling small bits of information over multiple pages. It does list RA and DEC which can be nice for manual users who use EQ mounts or for alt/az people who have a way to translate EQ information into Alt/Az. 

[Nick Sargeant]

59 minutes ago, John said:

Well I hope your skies in Cornwall are clearer than mine here in Somerset !

I can see stars but there is quite a lot of thin hazy cloud about which does not help with galaxies one bit. I've just about managed to spot M66 and M65 with my 100mm refractor but I suspect NGC 3628 is beyond the reach of my scope under the conditions here tonight.

I'll go back to observing double stars !

 

It was a struggle to find them, but did eventually.  Observed for about an hour.. All 3 kept blurring out then would reappear again for a short while! Still very faint though..I guess that was due to the hazy cloud you referred to maybe?

Was pleased to have found them though...my best view tonight was using the 25mm.. 

Thanks for everyone's advice..much appreciated.

back to 'Turn left at Orion' now to select my next target for tomorrow night hopefully.

[jetstream]

3 hours ago, Nick Sargeant said:

my best view tonight was using the 25mm.. 

These are actually good eyepieces, mine shows the Horse Head readily under dark skies. As for the 10mm MA...these are not so good, thats the bad news, the good news is that there are many reasonably priced ones out there. Having a few high transmission eyepieces is well worth the while and in your f6 scope a 12.5mm ortho fits the bill, narrow field and all. It has about 10mm eye relief.

As a point of reference for you plossls have about .7 x focal length ER and orthos .8x focal length.

Great observing btw.

[Steve Clay]

Managed to find 2 of the 3 with my 120 and 33mm ep. Skys were clear. 

[John]

1 hour ago, Steve Clay said:

Managed to find 2 of the 3 with my 120 and 33mm ep. Skys were clear. 

I don't feel too bad about finding just 2 under hazy skies with my 100mm now !

The Cats Eye nebula in Draco was an easier deep sky target last night - had a nice view of that at high power. It's surface brightness is somewhat higher than most galaxies though.

 

[jjbag]

I did this last Saturday night (last clear night) using my 250 dob, I used  my 24mm ES 68deg and it was sharp as can be.

[jetstream]

11 hours ago, jetstream said:

Having a few high transmission eyepieces is well worth the while

 

15 hours ago, Nick Sargeant said:

Was pleased to have found them though.

Last night the Heritage 130 performed very well on the Leo triplet. They were first found in the VG 24mm ES 68 and then fine tuned in a Circle T 12.5mm ortho. 2 very bright and the third an easy catch in direct vision. I sure like this ortho that cost me 50 bucks.

This same set up caught a dozen or so galaxies in Virgo during a brief panning session.

@Nick Sargeant your 200mm dob is a super instrument and will show a boggling amount of DSO under dark skies.