A handy "am I seeing it" suggestion.

[Gfamily]

This is pretty basic, but sometimes it's not clear whether you're seeing a target or not.

You may all be doing this already, but last night I was out using Stellarium+ & Sky Safari+ 6 on my phone, and I realised that if I zoom in on a target I could then adjust the 'magnitude range' until the apps only showed the stars I could see in the eyepiece, which would let me know if I was really seeing the target or not.

So, when I was looking to confirm that I was seeing the Saturn Nebula (C55), when SS+ 6 was showing all the stars down to 15 or less, it wasn't obvious, but if I reduced the magnitude so I could only see the background stars visible in the eyepiece ( <mag 11), it was clear that I was seeing the target in the expected place.

Don't forget to set the eyepiece image flips before you start of course so that the app shows exactly what you're expecting to see in the eyepiece.

I must remember to get out there again to see if I can see the RS Oph Nova tonight.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Gfamily
To correct the Nova name