Neptune?

[Xgaze]

Hi all,

Spent a surprising hour and a half last night viewing an, unexpected clear sky!

Found M27 dumbbell nebula for the first time! Then spent a good amount of time viewing other DSO's (mainly clusters) until Jupiter's conspicuous shine lured me in. What a treat it is at the moment! The Galilean moons on show as sharp points of light.

 Then decided to try and find Neptune, spent a good while trying to reference Stellarium, back and forth, just below Pisces, left of Aquarius...no joy!!

Am I too ambitious? Is it possible to view it with my Heritage 150? I was switching between a Plossl 32m and BST 8m. Trying to spot that lovely blue green colour, I guess it would be very small?

 

Either way, it was an enjoyable night, the milky way growing brighter by the minute, had to leave at 1am (when it was probably brightest!) Knowing my young family would wake early whatever!

Thanks for looking

Tony

[Cosmic Geoff]

29 minutes ago, Xgaze said:

Am I too ambitious? Is it possible to view it with my Heritage 150? I was switching between a Plossl 32m and BST 8m. Trying to spot that lovely blue green colour, I guess it would be very small?

It should be identifiable with a 150mm Newtonian.  It's small and dim, but at high powers will look less starlike than a star. I have only ever found it with a GoTo.

Edited August 7, 2021 by Cosmic Geoff

[wookie1965]

I have seen it in my 4" Refractor and at 12.30 it is high enough to be found and observed, should be no problem in a 6" scope.

[Nik271]

There are a lot of 7/8-th magnitude stars in this area, so careful star hopping is needed. It will help if you have a 50x9 finder on your Dob, not the more common RDF or 30x6 because they will not show you the dim stars.

My way to find Neptune is to look for the conspicuous triangle of Psi 1,2 and 3 Aquarii. these are 4-th mag so easily visible. Then identify Chi and Phi Aq which are 1 and 2 degrees higher than the triangle. Still very bright 4/5 magnitude stars.  Finally move east and horizontally about 5 degrees from the midpoint between Chi and Phi (directions are for about midnight UK time in early August). You will see a number of 7-th magnitude stars and Neptune among them should have a bluish hue. To check for sure use higher power and it will show as a small disc, only 2'' across, but well within the resolution limit of a 150mm Dob.

Good luck!

Edited August 7, 2021 by Nik271
corrected some angle measures

[John]

Quite possible to see Neptune with a 150mm scope. It's actually visible (just about) in a 6x30 optical finder if you know where to look.

I spotted it a short while back with my 100mm refractor. It needs high magnifications (150x or more) to show that it is a disk - it's apparent diameter is just 2.3 arc seconds so it would fit between the pairs of stars in the famous "double double" Epsilon Lyrae.

I've actually glimpsed Neptune's largest moon, Triton with my 130mm refractor last year !

Here is my report from a few nights back:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/380941-outer-planets-plus-some-deeper-stuff/?tab=comments#comment-4119610

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by John

[Nik271]

PS. Actually a pair of binoculars will be more useful to spot it first and once you know exactly where to look then use the Dob,

[Xgaze]

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

PS. Actually a pair of binoculars will be more useful to spot it first and once you know exactly where to look then use the Dob

Great tip, thanks.

Keep forgetting to bring binoculars out, off to put them with my kit now!...😀

[Macavity]

I must admit that I cheated! Having slewed via GoTo on monitor screen
(and imaged) Neptune - Using Video Astronomy via my 8" f/4 Newt... 🥳



I CAREFULLY removed the camera and inserted a low power eyepiece.
Neptune was pretty distinctive, as a lovely Blue "Star"! Of course, trying
to go to higher Mag, I "bumped" the scope... Never found it again! 😛

[Tiny Clanger]

2 hours ago, Xgaze said:

Hi all,

Spent a surprising hour and a half last night viewing an, unexpected clear sky!

Found M27 dumbbell nebula for the first time! Then spent a good amount of time viewing other DSO's (mainly clusters) until Jupiter's conspicuous shine lured me in. What a treat it is at the moment! The Galilean moons on show as sharp points of light.

 Then decided to try and find Neptune, spent a good while trying to reference Stellarium, back and forth, just below Pisces, left of Aquarius...no joy!!

Am I too ambitious? Is it possible to view it with my Heritage 150? I was switching between a Plossl 32m and BST 8m. Trying to spot that lovely blue green colour, I guess it would be very small?

 

Either way, it was an enjoyable night, the milky way growing brighter by the minute, had to leave at 1am (when it was probably brightest!) Knowing my young family would wake early whatever!

Thanks for looking

Tony

Hi Tony,

Sounds ,like a great session !

The heritage 150 will  show you Neptune ,  I'm sure of this because I managed to see Uranus through mine last winter. Neptune eluded me back then,  (several times )and I'm looking forward to actually seeing it when/if the clouds ever clear here.

Did you know that  stellarium  has  'ocular view' ? It allows you to set your telescope focal length and whatever change it makes to the view (inverted and flipped for a dob/newt. ) , input your eyepiece, then select Neptune (or whatever) and see it on screen centred in that eyepiece approximately as you would in reality. , except with helpful labels !

I've found it very useful to use to establish a star pattern to look for in the low power eyepiece, identify the target,  then up the magnification.

Heather

[Xgaze]

14 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Hi Tony,

Sounds ,like a great session !

The heritage 150 will  show you Neptune ,  I'm sure of this because I managed to see Uranus through mine last winter. Neptune eluded me back then,  (several times )and I'm looking forward to actually seeing it when/if the clouds ever clear here.

Did you know that  stellarium  has  'ocular view' ? It allows you to set your telescope focal length and whatever change it makes to the view (inverted and flipped for a dob/newt. ) , input your eyepiece, then select Neptune (or whatever) and see it on screen centred in that eyepiece approximately as you would in reality. , except with helpful labels !

I've found it very useful to use to establish a star pattern to look for in the low power eyepiece, identify the target,  then up the magnification.

Heather

That sounds like a great idea although,  I guess I'd need to upgrade and pay for Stellarium?

Edited August 7, 2021 by Xgaze
empty reply!

[Tiny Clanger]

16 minutes ago, Xgaze said:

That sounds like a great idea although,  I guess I'd need to upgrade and pay for Stellarium?

Not if you use it on a windows or linux computer, or a mac : it is a free (small) download, and an open source bit of software .

https://stellarium.org/en_GB/

Don't want to take a laptop  along ? No problem : you can run the time forward on stellarium to the time when you anticipate observing,  do the ocular view plugin routine, take a snap of the screen with your 'phone, and take that with you (or do a proper screen shot, but the snap is quick and easy)

Heather

[Xgaze]

16 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Not if you use it on a windows or linux computer, or a mac : it is a free (small) download, and an open source bit of software .

https://stellarium.org/en_GB/

Don't want to take a laptop  along ? No problem : you can run the time forward on stellarium to the time when you anticipate observing,  do the ocular view plugin routine, take a snap of the screen with your 'phone, and take that with you (or do a proper screen shot, but the snap is quick and easy)

Heather

Great!

Going to try that.

many thanks Heather!

[Tiny Clanger]

Specific instructions on how to  set up and use the oculars plug in : https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/stellarium-oculars-plugin/

I've a suspicion that ocular view might now appear  top right of your stellarium screen when you install it, without you having to do anything more, but otherwise those instructions are good.

Heather

[Tiny Clanger]

https://sas-sky.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Stellarium_Handbook.pdf

Is a decent clear introductory explanation of some of the setup & main tools on stellarium, it's a few years old but while the programme itself is constantly evolving the main principles have stayed the same.

[Xgaze]

3 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

https://sas-sky.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Stellarium_Handbook.pdf

Is a decent clear introductory explanation of some of the setup & main tools on stellarium, it's a few years old but while the programme itself is constantly evolving the main principles have stayed the same.

These are great, thanks Heather!

I'm sure I'll need them.

Hoping for clear skies!

Best,

T