E.T cluster

[CKP_82]

Hi, I could really do with some help please.

I have a sw heritage 130p with 25mm 10mm and 8mm eyepieces along with a 2x Barlow. 

To start with I know North is South in a reflector, but is east and west still the same?

I'm looking to find the E.T cluster. A couple of nights ago I tried with my 10x50's and last night I tried with my telescope. I'm just not grasping where it is. I'm using stellarium as a guide but it don't list most the stars I see through the scope. I can't really find a starhop guide to it. All I pretty much know is it is south east of Rucbar using naked eye or binoculars.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Nik271]

In your Heritage both north and south and east west are reversed. What type of finder are you using? If you have an optical finder you can actually see the bright star of the ET cluster, Phi Cass which is magnitude 5:

 

Find the 5-th and 4-th stars of Cassiopeia, Segin and Ruchbach and move 1/3 step of their distance further beyond Ruchbach. The ET cluster should be within  view with your lowest power EP. 

PS, here is my sketch from Stellarium:

Edited September 29, 2021 by Nik271
Added a picture

[Stu]

59 minutes ago, CKP_82 said:

Hi, I could really do with some help please.

I have a sw heritage 130p with 25mm 10mm and 8mm eyepieces along with a 2x Barlow. 

To start with I know North is South in a reflector, but is east and west still the same?

I'm looking to find the E.T cluster. A couple of nights ago I tried with my 10x50's and last night I tried with my telescope. I'm just not grasping where it is. I'm using stellarium as a guide but it don't list most the stars I see through the scope. I can't really find a starhop guide to it. All I pretty much know is it is south east of Rucbar using naked eye or binoculars.

Any help would be much appreciated.

NGC457 is one of my favourites, a great fun little cluster.

I tend to make a right angled triangle between Navi and Ruchbah, and out your finder cross hairs on the right angled corner. With a 25mm eyepiece in your scope, NGC457 should be on the field of view. The blue circle represents your field of view with a 25mm eyepiece.

Equally you can position Ruchbah in the eyepiece as shown in the second image, then pan a little to the South and you will get it.

Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

[Pixies]

I'll give the usual shout-out for "Turn Left at Orion" which covers a lot of ground regarding star-hopping and the different views in different scopes.

If you are using any of the apps, like Stu shows above, the display can be adjusted to show the eyepiece view (in your case left<->right and up<->down). Before I knew how to do this, I would actually rotate the phone in my hand 180 degrees!

 

[NGC 1502]

Good advice already given. I’d like to add the following for observers in the northern hemisphere.

In any scope without a drive, if you watch where stars drift OUT of the field of view, that’s WEST.

If you nudge the scope towards Polaris, watch where stars ENTER the field of view, that’s NORTH.

Ed.

[Nyctimene]

1 hour ago, NGC 1502 said:

In any scope without a drive, if you watch where stars drift OUT of the field of view, that’s WEST.

To add: in any Newtonian scope (as your Heritage is), NORTH is 90° counterclockwise to WEST (so you don't have to move your scope). Just watch the stars (with a higher mag, to "accelerate" the movement), where they are leaving the field of view; right angled counterclockwise is N.

Mnemonic: stars enter from the east, and wane in the west.

Hth.

Stephan

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by Nyctimene

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Pixies said:

If you are using any of the apps, like Stu shows above, the display can be adjusted to show the eyepiece view (in your case left<->right and up<->down). Before I knew how to do this, I would actually rotate the phone in my hand 180 degrees!

Yep, the view shown in my images is upside down, as for a newt.

[CKP_82]

Thanks for all the advice.

I do actually have turn left at orion. I totally forgot to look in there, it's all apps nowadays (stellarium).

I will have to remember the inverted compass points, I did actually rotate my phone 180 degrees!

What magnification would be best to find it and view it in?

 

[Nik271]

To find it use your lowest magnification ( I guess that would be  650/25= 26). I think it looks best at about x50 mag, that's just my personal opinion. 

[Stu]

9 minutes ago, CKP_82 said:

What magnification would be best to find it and view it in?

As per my post, find in with the 25mm then switch to higher power, this shows the 10mm. Try the 8mm too and see what you prefer.

[Tiny Clanger]

4 hours ago, CKP_82 said:

Hi, I could really do with some help please.

I have a sw heritage 130p with 25mm 10mm and 8mm eyepieces along with a 2x Barlow. 

To start with I know North is South in a reflector, but is east and west still the same?

I'm looking to find the E.T cluster. A couple of nights ago I tried with my 10x50's and last night I tried with my telescope. I'm just not grasping where it is. I'm using stellarium as a guide but it don't list most the stars I see through the scope. I can't really find a starhop guide to it. All I pretty much know is it is south east of Rucbar using naked eye or binoculars.

Any help would be much appreciated.

I came across it purely by accident when scanning that area with a 16mm eyepiece in my heritage 150 ( 47x magnification) , so you should be able to see it in the 130, it might be that the orientation or scale hampered you in recognising it ...

I am sure other versions of stellarium can do this, as can other programs and apps, but I am only familiar with the downloaded version of stellarium, so this is how I use that to help find/recognise such things when the dob turns them around and confuses me

Stellarium has a 'plug in' called 'ocular view' . To find it, go  to the left hand menu, click 'configuration window' (the spanner icon) . A pop up menu offers a tab called 'plug ins' .click it, select 'oculars' from  the list, and 'load at startup' . Restart stellarium, and there should be a new bar, top right, for ocular view. On that bar, click the spanner icon, to access a menu where you set up  your telescope statistics and the way it flips the image, and the statistics of each of your eyepieces. Once that's done you can leave ocular view, select your target on the main screen, click ocular view, and see a simulation of approximately how it will  look  through your specific setup, clicking through the eyepieces to see the different views.

It sounds complicated, but once you  set up ocular view it is saved, there, and ready to use any time you open stellarium.

Heather

 

[CKP_82]

5 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I came across it purely by accident when scanning that area with a 16mm eyepiece in my heritage 150 ( 47x magnification) , so you should be able to see it in the 130, it might be that the orientation or scale hampered you in recognising it ...

I am sure other versions of stellarium can do this, as can other programs and apps, but I am only familiar with the downloaded version of stellarium, so this is how I use that to help find/recognise such things when the dob turns them around and confuses me

Stellarium has a 'plug in' called 'ocular view' . To find it, go  to the left hand menu, click 'configuration window' (the spanner icon) . A pop up menu offers a tab called 'plug ins' .click it, select 'oculars' from  the list, and 'load at startup' . Restart stellarium, and there should be a new bar, top right, for ocular view. On that bar, click the spanner icon, to access a menu where you set up  your telescope statistics and the way it flips the image, and the statistics of each of your eyepieces. Once that's done you can leave ocular view, select your target on the main screen, click ocular view, and see a simulation of approximately how it will  look  through your specific setup, clicking through the eyepieces to see the different views.

It sounds complicated, but once you  set up ocular view it is saved, there, and ready to use any time you open stellarium.

Heather

 

Thanks, I will have to look into doing this on my laptop, it ain't the same on mobile 

[CKP_82]

I found it!

I fluked it but I found it. It looks nothing like an owl but sure does look like E.T.

Once I got Ruchbah in the 25mm eyepiece I was pushing down and to the left thinking that was where I needed to be when really all I needed to do was just pull it to the left. I couldn't see anything that resembled ET but could see 2 bright stars close together. I centred them and put in the 8mm and there he was looking straight back at me!

[Stu]

1 hour ago, CKP_82 said:

I found it!

I fluked it but I found it. It looks nothing like an owl but sure does look like E.T.

Once I got Ruchbah in the 25mm eyepiece I was pushing down and to the left thinking that was where I needed to be when really all I needed to do was just pull it to the left. I couldn't see anything that resembled ET but could see 2 bright stars close together. I centred them and put in the 8mm and there he was looking straight back at me!

Good stuff 👍. He’s a funny little thing, always been more ET than Owl to me too.

[wulfrun]

I also made a first attempt at this tonight and found it successfully. Didn't last long though, thanks to cloud - just faded to the "eyes" after a few minutes.

[CKP_82]

It's amazing how zooming in on a couple of stars that just look like 2 stars can actually look like something totally different! I liked the coathanger but this one is my new favourite.

@wulfrun with a name like that I could tell you were from Wolverhampton. What part you from? I'm in Bilston myself.

[wulfrun]

8 hours ago, CKP_82 said:

It's amazing how zooming in on a couple of stars that just look like 2 stars can actually look like something totally different! I liked the coathanger but this one is my new favourite.

@wulfrun with a name like that I could tell you were from Wolverhampton. What part you from? I'm in Bilston myself.

Yes, the name's a bit of a giveaway eh. I'm pretty close to the racecourse, makes the light pollution even worse when the floodlights are on. I'd imagine Bilston would be marginally worse than here but not much to choose.

[CKP_82]

2 hours ago, wulfrun said:

Yes, the name's a bit of a giveaway eh. I'm pretty close to the racecourse, makes the light pollution even worse when the floodlights are on. I'd imagine Bilston would be marginally worse than here but not much to choose.

Its not the best is it. I can only make out polaris in the little dipper, my eyes probably don't help.

[wulfrun]

1 hour ago, CKP_82 said:

Its not the best is it. I can only make out polaris in the little dipper, my eyes probably don't help.

Luckily my vision remains excellent, so far - especially night vision. I can easily make out Kochab and Pherkad too. On a good night, maybe a couple in the handle but not often. I can still see Alcor and Mizar and just make out Epsilon Lyra as a double, naked-eye (as 2 not 4!)

One saving grace is that we're on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation so we don't have to traipse halfway across it to darker skies. Pretty much anywhere west-ish brings improvements!

[CKP_82]

12 hours ago, wulfrun said:

Luckily my vision remains excellent, so far - especially night vision. I can easily make out Kochab and Pherkad too. On a good night, maybe a couple in the handle but not often. I can still see Alcor and Mizar and just make out Epsilon Lyra as a double, naked-eye (as 2 not 4!)

One saving grace is that we're on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation so we don't have to traipse halfway across it to darker skies. Pretty much anywhere west-ish brings improvements!

I can make out mizar but not epsilon lyra. Driving half way to bridgenorth (20 minutes) is like having dark skies compared to my back garden!