Needing a good monthly guide of DSOs

[Moonshed]

Hi guys, 

Can anyone recommend a good guide to DSOs and objects of interest, be it for imaging or observing at the eyepiece, that is presented in a monthly format. I have a good book that lists all the Messier objects in numerical order and gives the months they are observable, it’s “Messier Astrophotography Reference” by Allan Hall, but obviously only lists Messier objects otherwise it would be ideal.

I appreciate that with so many different catalogs it may not be practical to lump them all together, but I feel there must be something that meets this need.

Thanks.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Moonshed

[Martin Meredith]

Not monthly, but split into Winter-Summer (separate volumes), is the Night Sky Observers' Guide (NSOG). Since objects that culminate higher than say 30 degrees are typically observable for several months, having the seasonal split is reasonably effective.

Another great book (for many other reasons) is Garfinkle's Star Hopping. This one is organised in terms of monthly sky tours. NSOG covers more objects while Garfinkle covers a lot of interesting star-lore.

Martin

[paul mc c]

https://telescopius.com/

 

[vlaiv]

Why not use Stellarium?

Just set it up to show objects of interest and dial in your observing time and see what is closest to meridian (objects are highest in the sky when crossing meridian).

You can also use oculars plugin to see how it will fit onto sensor or what magnification eyepiece to use on that target.

Make yourself list of interesting objects and star hop notes in case you have manual setup.

 

[wimvb]

33 minutes ago, paul mc c said:

https://telescopius.com/

 

+1 for Telescopius. You can create your own catalogs with favourite objects.

[dobblob]

Just a little word of caution when using Stellarium----it's depictions of some of the galaxies and nebulae are rather generous. You can crank the settings under "DSOs" to reveal all sorts of objects that even with long exposure images will not equal what is shown let alone visual telescopic views.

It was educational for me to attempt to image the Monkey Head neb on the basis of what Stellarium displayed. After a few hours of exposure it was barely visible.

I tend to stay with Messier. Hey, if he could see it in the 1740's with an early 4" refractor then that is a good reference for me.

[Moonshed]

Thank you all so much for your replies, which I shall of course be looking into. I have been slow to respond because the forecast looked good so although all I could see was cloud I decided to get my scope out to cool down just in case. As things began to look even better I plugged everything in and did a dry run to make sure all is working as it should. 
If possible I want to try out my new ZWO ASI 224 mc on the full moon tonight as so far I have only imaged Mars with it. It took me a while to adjust all the settings to get the correct colour balance and brightness etc. Even without the 2.5 x Barlow it’s very much zoomed in which is great in a way but makes it impossible to get all the moon.  I need to dig out my Telextender and see if I can fit the ZWO to it.

Thanks again, you have come up with good answers, as usual 😄

[vlaiv]

2 minutes ago, Moonshed said:

Even without the 2.5 x Barlow it’s very much zoomed in which is great in a way but makes it impossible to get all the moon.

Mosaic is your friend

It is a bit of a pain to process large number of panels, but it is worth it - you can get very sharp large images (think poster sized sharp Moon that you can print and give away as a present - not bad idea).

[Moonshed]

2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Mosaic is your friend

It is a bit of a pain to process large number of panels, but it is worth it - you can get very sharp large images (think poster sized sharp Moon that you can print and give away as a present - not bad idea).

That I hadn’t thought of! I was concentrating on trying to get a one shot full moon in detail and of course mosaic is the way to go. I will have to look on YouTube at yet another tutorial as I haven’t tried it before.🤓

Tonight turned out pretty good, the sky cleared by around midnight and the temperature was somewhere down in the brass monkey -C level.  It was pleasing to also have good seeing for a change, even at the high magnification created by aiming at the moon with the ZWO plugged into my Celestron there was not a great deal of wobble; in fact far less than I ever had imaging Mars which was always jumping about like a hamster on speed. 

It’s too late, 01:45, to start looking to see what I have captured, it can wait till morning. Mind you I think I may just take a quick peek, let’s see...oh!...”Coming dear!” It will have to wait till morning 😂

[jcj380]

Not as sophisticated as some online tools, but I find this one quite useful.  Once I print out a list, I add it to a binder for field use. 

SAC

 

[rnobleeddy]

16 hours ago, wimvb said:

+1 for Telescopius. You can create your own catalogs with favourite objects.

Another +1.

The only downside is that it tends to lead to me imaging what's best positioned/brightest each time we get a clear night. On the positive side of that, it's stopped me imaging things that I have no chance of doing a good job of.

[wimvb]

32 minutes ago, rnobleeddy said:

On the positive side of that, it's stopped me imaging things that I have no chance of doing a good job of.

Aladin can cure that problem. 😁

https://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/