Trouble finding my first non planetary object

[McTestkil]

Hi, I've been having some beginner troubles. My telescope is a skywatcher 130/900 with the EQ2 mount.

 

I'm new to stargazing, and have had some trouble over the past weeks getting anything except a planet. (got saturn mars and jupiter so far.)

I've been trying to see the ring nebula for a while, tried like 5 nights already, each time I fail. Today i've starhopped (for the first time, succesfully) for about 2 hours between Sheliak and Sulafat. (I had some  trouble finding the correct stars in my telescope and moving between them witouth finderscope, was no problem this time). Yet, I still didn't find it, I tried several lenses, first wide angle, then my best 7.5 mm possl lens, nothing...

After hours I did see a very faint grey spot +- where it should be that couldn't be focused. Not sure if that was it or if it was something else or if my brain was making me see things to get me to stop.

 

Maybe the light conditions weren't good enough today? (It was almost full moon) I did see way less stars than usual, but then again i'm not sure on how bright and how excatly it should look like, all google images of telescope pics show it having some color and not just being a blur.

 

Second thing i'm wondering, I think i'm aligning the telescope to polaris incorrectly, I have to adjust with the second knob way way to often. Any tips on that?  Maybe i'm not being precise enough setting the telescope into "standard position" for DEC and RA. I've watched couple of guides and videos on it, don't see how i'm wrong, I'm never sure on how precisely i've resetted the position tho. (And yes I'm aligning using ALT AZ) For a second I was also thinking the RA should not move polaris out of center, but that mechanically doesn't make sense. (It draws a circle, top being polaris when in standard position.)

 

Thanks for the advice/help !

[Kyle Allen]

The Ring Nebula has a high surface brightness so it isn’t too affected by moonlight. However, it is very small and that can often make it difficult to find if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

It lies almost exactly halfway between Sulafat and Sheliak. I’ve attached an image with a 1.7 degree FOV, which is achievable in your scope with a low power eyepiece. As you can see, provided your finder scope is well aligned, just pointing it halfway between the two stars should get in in the FOV. 

Once you have done so, scan around and look for what looks like a slightly out of focus star. Scanning around will help the light fall on your peripheral vision that is more sensitive to light.

Once you have found it, you can increase the magnification. This can help to increase the contrast a little bit. You may find that if you look directly at it, it disappears. That is normal and happens because the centre of our eye is packed with less sensitive cone cells. Looking slightly off to the side makes the light fall on the more sensitive rod cells and can make the object suddenly pop into view. This is called averted vision and can take some time to master. Try scanning around it to find the position that works best for you. 

Don’t try to focus on the Nebula - it won’t work. Focus on a star in the field of view so that it is a point of light. Then you know that the Nebula will be in focus. 

It can be a challenge to begin with but keep at it. It does get easier and it is very rewarding! 🙂

[Waddensky]

Kyle above has great advice. The Ring is bright, but very small and almost star-like at lower magnifications. You most likely saw it but didn't recognise it. It forms an isosceles triangle with two 9th magnitude field stars. No colour, just a white or greyish sharp-edged oval.

Perhaps you can give Messier 13 a try next time. Easy to find and star hop to, very bright and immediately recognisable as deep-sky object.

But deep-sky objects in general are very different and much more subtle than the bright planets. Once you know what to expect, they're a lot easier to find and recognise.

Good luck!

[CraigT82]

I think that fuzzy grey spot that wouldn't focus was probably the ring nebula, most planetary nebs look like that in small scopes at first glance, especially with a full moon, but with a bit of observing and maybe averted vision, you will make out the ring structure

[Stu]

@McTestkil you are certainly showing the patience and perseverance to be successful with visual astronomy which is great! 👍👍

You've had some very good advice already, there is not much I can add to it really. So much of this is about knowing and understanding what you are looking for and at. Objects get easier as you view them more often; you build up mind memory of what to look for and generally see more over time.

It does sound very much like you saw it, so have another go when the Moon is less bright and try averted vision. It needs just the right amount of magnification for the conditions; too little and it looks almost stellar, too much and it gets too faint an spread out.

I viewed it last night through a 150p, so a similar scope, a little more aperture. To my eye it was bright and obvious, a clearly defined ring with gentle light filling it. I would expect the view through the 130mm to be quite good too, just a little dimmer at the same size, or the same brightness but smaller if you use a lower Mag. I’ve seen it from home with a 66mm scope before, albeit with no Moon, so it is quite bright really.

Keep at it, and let us know how you get on.

Stu

[McTestkil]

I found it !

Hello, and thank you all for the responses !

for those who care:

So, took a week break because of full moon etc. Today was optimal moon only came out at around 01:30, so had lots of time to stargaze.

So after realising you have to remove the dust cap in front of the barel entirely..., no i'm joking ^^  So, this time I almost immediatly saw the grey spot again, witouth losing it after seconds. Yeah what I saw last time was def that. @Waddensky was right about the once you know what to expect, it's easy now.  I tried different zoom levels (barlow didn't work tho) trying to see some more detail than a grey eliptic object. (Yes I'm well aware how to use averted vision.) I also got a better sense on field of view sizes and directions (up is down, left is right... and in the telescope it's turned 90 degrees for extra confussion)

 

Next I went for M13,  found it quickly (minus the part where you have to rotate the damn tube and find the correct stars)

It looked similar to the nebula, a grey spot, way bigger and brighter (more white'ish) It was also more round.

I have to say i'm a bit disappointed. No I wasn't expecting high tech satelite imagery or models. But, just a bit more than what i saw. I didn't see any structure except it being eliptic ishhh, sad about these things is that, witouth knowing beforehand what you are looking at, you don't know what it is. Same for M13,

Going from this image I should have seen some dots, (yes I tried changing focus for both objects, the best focus was the same focus used on the stars.)

It looked like this, with it being brighter in the center, I was looking at the correct thing. Yet i didn't see any detail in this neither. No dots, stars just shades of grey.

Edited August 8, 2020 by McTestkil

[Stu]

@McTestkil what sort of magnification were you using? I’ve observed M13 through my Heritage 150P and 200mm f8 recently under skies that aren’t that dark currently and in both instance I could resolve stars surprisingly deeply in towards the core, not just around the edges. Averted vision does help, and intend to use a flicking movement of my eyes ie look at the object then flick your eyes away. The movement tends to help your eyes detect the detail which then becomes easier to see.

Focus is critical, as is collimation. Keep practicing; repeated observations of the same object tends to show you more each time, so don’t think it is a case that you will see everything on the first look, you won’t. Keep persevering and you will get there.

[Kyle Allen]

Well done on finding the Ring Nebula!

With the same scope as you, I could resolve stars in M13. High magnification helps to reveal individual stars. Since the stars in globular clusters are quite faint, I find it helps to focus on a brighter star in the field of view. There are two magnitude 7 stars nearby M13 that you can use to focus on. 🙂

[Starwatcher2001]

Don't know what your skies were like when you looked at M13, but ours were poor last night with high whispy clouds. I looked at M15 (another globular cluster) in my 9.25" SCT and it looked pretty poor.

[Gfamily]

2 hours ago, Starwatcher2001 said:

Don't know what your skies were like when you looked at M13, but ours were poor last night with high whispy clouds. I looked at M15 (another globular cluster) in my 9.25" SCT and it looked pretty poor.

Yes, sky quality makes a huge difference. This is a mock up of the difference between what I saw two weeks apart, first at a dark site in Wales and then my home 'edge of town' view for M13