Unreasonable expectations? M42

[UKDiver]

Evening all,

First night out since early December, weather has been grim and so has my back.

So, as it was nice and bright, I spend quite a while looking at the moon. Jupiter was very hazy, so next was the challenge to myself...

M42 was not obvious with a Vixen SLV 25mm on FC-100DC, no filters. It was getting a little misty by the time Orion was high enough to clear nearby houses and trees. About 19:00. Light pollution map shows Bortle 5, I expect it's worse given property developments since the LP data date.

Am I being unreasonable in expecting to see any evidence of M42 under those conditions? For comparison, when I've seen it, M31 is a faint smudge.

Adrian

[Oldfort]

I'd guess that high cloud was your problem.  A couple of nights ago I could see Rigel and Betelguese clearly, but I couldn't see Orion's belt, let alone M42, with 10x50 bins.

 

The following night they were all as clear as a bell, and I'm in a bortle 8 area.

[John]

Thin cloud masks deep sky objects rather effectively as does a bight moon. I have these issues here tonight as well. Unless it clears I'm going to stick to the moon and binary stars. Galaxies and nebulae, if visible at all, will be far from their best.

On a dark, transparent night, a 100mm aperture can show Messier 42 very nicely.

 

[Pete Presland]

As others have said hazy cloud will certainly reduce the show, i also use a UHC OR 0III filter to really make M42 show even more detail.

[John]

14 minutes ago, John said:

Thin cloud masks deep sky objects rather effectively as does a bight moon. I have these issues here tonight as well. Unless it clears I'm going to stick to the moon and binary stars. Galaxies and nebulae, if visible at all, will be far from their best.

On a dark, transparent night, a 100mm aperture can show Messier 42 very nicely.

 

I've just had a look at M42 with my 120mm refractor. I can see a little nebulosity around the Trapezium stars and the contrast of that gets stronger with more magnification but the extended "wings" of nebulosity are really not showing tonight. The thin cloud seems to have eased but the moon is not far away from Orion (Taurus tonight) so that is drowning out the fainter parts of the nebula.

In compensation, the seeing seems really steady tonight with E & F Trapezium showing well in the 120mm at around 130x.

[DhamR]

I was looking at M42 last night and thought it was pretty good from here, I couldn't see the wings at all, but the central patch of bright nebulosity was clear and green even at 10x.  I saw a bit more light weirdly if I slowly panned the scope left and right over the view, seemed to trick my eye into seeing more detail than I could in the stationary image. 

[Zermelo]

27 minutes ago, DhamR said:

I was looking at M42 last night and thought it was pretty good from here, I couldn't see the wings at all, but the central patch of bright nebulosity was clear and green even at 10x.  I saw a bit more light weirdly if I slowly panned the scope left and right over the view, seemed to trick my eye into seeing more detail than I could in the stationary image. 

Yes, the eye (or more likely, the brain) is more sensitive to details when they are moving. That's also the basis of the "tapping the tube" trick to spot faint objects.

[UKDiver]

22 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

As others have said hazy cloud will certainly reduce the show, i also use a UHC OR 0III filter to really make M42 show even more detail.

Thank you everyone.

I do have a UHC filter, but did not use it on the basis that I was not expecting it to bring much out of what appeared to be nothing at all. Next time.

[Franklin]

It's been clear here for the past two nights and as I am limited to a south facing balcony at the moment my observing has been restricted to Orion really. M42 is always fantastic, the Moon is up high and flooding the night sky with it's glare but even so the Great Nebula in Orion was still visible in my tiny Vixen 62mm achro with a 30mm NPL giving 17x, M42 was framed very nicely. Upping to 35x with the 15mm NPL resolved the trapezium showing four stars surrounded by nebulosity and the famous fishes mouth dark area. With averted vision this dark patch becomes more prominent and the whole nebula begins to reveal it's bat-wing shape. Couldn't use my UHC-S as it's 2" and my little Vixen will only accept 1.25" but still, I thought the view was quite spectacular for such a small aperture. The seeing must have been quite good here last night as I spent an hour splitting doubles in Orion and I even think I managed to split Rigel. But it was only fleetingly and could have been wishfull thinking on my part. The 4" ED f/11 has no such problem but until I move to a more suitable location it is hibernating in it's case, the scope is longer than the width of my balcony.🙂

[Stu]

On 12/01/2022 at 19:50, UKDiver said:

Evening all,

First night out since early December, weather has been grim and so has my back.

So, as it was nice and bright, I spend quite a while looking at the moon. Jupiter was very hazy, so next was the challenge to myself...

M42 was not obvious with a Vixen SLV 25mm on FC-100DC, no filters. It was getting a little misty by the time Orion was high enough to clear nearby houses and trees. About 19:00. Light pollution map shows Bortle 5, I expect it's worse given property developments since the LP data date.

Am I being unreasonable in expecting to see any evidence of M42 under those conditions? For comparison, when I've seen it, M31 is a faint smudge.

Adrian

I’ve just had a look at M42 through my FC100DC under Bortle 6 skies, obviously with the Moon high up and the floodlights on the rugby pitch to the South on for training. They are quite well shielded though to be fair.

Plenty of nebulosity visible using either zoom (17.8 to 8.9mm, or a 10mm XW but I’m sure the same would be true in any eyepiece. The transparency is much better here tonight which will help but I would think you would be able to see something at least. I assume the Trapezium was clear?

Have another go on a more transparent night and see how it goes.

[Stu1smartcookie]

13 hours ago, Franklin said:

It's been clear here for the past two nights and as I am limited to a south facing balcony at the moment my observing has been restricted to Orion really. M42 is always fantastic, the Moon is up high and flooding the night sky with it's glare but even so the Great Nebula in Orion was still visible in my tiny Vixen 62mm achro with a 30mm NPL giving 17x, M42 was framed very nicely. Upping to 35x with the 15mm NPL resolved the trapezium showing four stars surrounded by nebulosity and the famous fishes mouth dark area. With averted vision this dark patch becomes more prominent and the whole nebula begins to reveal it's bat-wing shape. Couldn't use my UHC-S as it's 2" and my little Vixen will only accept 1.25" but still, I thought the view was quite spectacular for such a small aperture. The seeing must have been quite good here last night as I spent an hour splitting doubles in Orion and I even think I managed to split Rigel. But it was only fleetingly and could have been wishfull thinking on my part. The 4" ED f/11 has no such problem but until I move to a more suitable location it is hibernating in it's case, the scope is longer than the width of my balcony.🙂

When i retire my wife and i are emigrating .. we have a brand new  flat which is still awaiting interior work but i have a balcony that gives me North, East and West , but , alas no southern skies .. in fact North is the predominant viewpoint... Not ideal , esopecially viewing from an  balcony . Short scopes will be the order of the day , no doubt .

Loving the clear nights we've had this week . lets hope it continues. 

[Mr niall]

M42 is almost visible with the naked eye on a really good night. But I wouldn’t worry, it’ll just be the weather. There’s a huge range of weather that consititutes a “clear sky” and higher up haze will obliterate anything even vaguely faint. Also, If you were observing last week then I think the moon would have been in just about the worst place possible.

But you’ll easily be able to see it next time. Also watch for the trap of your objective getting misted up. It happens by stealth!

[UKDiver]

3 minutes ago, Mr niall said:

M42 is almost visible with the naked eye on a really good night. But I wouldn’t worry, it’ll just be the weather. There’s a huge range of weather that consititutes a “clear sky” and higher up haze will obliterate anything even vaguely faint. Also, If you were observing last week then I think the moon would have been in just about the worst place possible.

But you’ll easily be able to see it next time. Also watch for the trap of your objective getting misted up. It happens by stealth!

Unfortunately the three brighter stars that make up the 'sword' are barely visible to the naked eye here. How I long for the bright stars of my youth.

[Mr niall]

16 minutes ago, UKDiver said:

Unfortunately the three brighter stars that make up the 'sword' are barely visible to the naked eye here. How I long for the bright stars of my youth.

Agreed! Its a real treat to get somewhere dark. I live in bottle 5/6 too and I can see the sword 1 or maybe 2 nights a year just about - and even then it’s marginal.

[Paz]

I can see m42 nebulosity through scopes most of the time even on moolit nights and under light polluted skies but how much is visible varies from a small faint nebulosity that isn't much to look at and in my earlier observing days I might not have noticed, all the way through to the full bat-signal and details within it. 

[DhamR]

On 17/01/2022 at 16:49, Mr niall said:

Agreed! Its a real treat to get somewhere dark. I live in bottle 5/6 too and I can see the sword 1 or maybe 2 nights a year just about - and even then it’s marginal.

That's mad because I'm in a bortle 6 area and can see the sword with naked eye on most clear evenings. Certainly well enough that my red dot finder is all I need to get onto the brightest bit of orion's nebula first time.

[Mr niall]

1 hour ago, DhamR said:

That's mad because I'm in a bortle 6 area and can see the sword with naked eye on most clear evenings. Certainly well enough that my red dot finder is all I need to get onto the brightest bit of orion's nebula first time.

Well… funnnily enough, I was out last night and…

Problem is that there is a large town due south of me and the horizon is quite high so I struggle. There’s about a dozen Messiers from around m16,17,18,23,24 etc that are either too low all year round our just completely drowned out in an orange murk.

[UKDiver]

On 13/01/2022 at 19:37, UKDiver said:

Thank you everyone.

I do have a UHC filter, but did not use it on the basis that I was not expecting it to bring much out of what appeared to be nothing at all. Next time.

Well after nearly two months , it's 'Next time'.

Which met with success. M42 very obvious, I was very happy to see it and now know what is reasonable to expect. I was happy to cope with almost constant slo-mo operation at x211 too. First outings for the Pentax siblings.

I'm not sure how much difference the filter made, not enough time to spend swapping it in and out and back again.

 

[bosun21]

I was viewing M42 last Saturday with my 20x60 Pentax binoculars and the view was really nice and much better than I expected. Here’s Chris looking through his Evostar 120 at M42 last week with a 25mm plossl