Getting up to no mischief.

[Capt Slog]

Last night was first for me in terms of using my telescope.  I got up at about 5am to take advantage of the clear sky and hopefully fully dark adapted eyes.

I've been looking for M108 for some weeks now.  It's not all i do, but I try each time I go out when the weather permits. Sadly, I've still not seen it.

It was strange setting up the telescope at that time of the morning, nothing was where I'm used to seeing it.  Yes, I know things move, but when you go out every few days or so at the same times, the move is gradual.  Suddenly to look up and have things upside-down took a bit of orientation.  I'm quite used to moving from Merak to the right place, but had to rethink when it was the opposite direction.  Anyway, as I said, still not seen it, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not going to.

As I've mentioned before, I set a goal of working through the Messiers.  I've now picked all the 'low hanging fruit' and the rest are proving difficult.  Ironically, some I've found were really hanging low in the sky when I spotted them, and it seems that south is a good direction for me, whereas what looks a darker northeast apparently isn't that dark.  I can even see a yellowish glow to the South, but it doesn't affect the view that much.  Strange.

 

I did manage to find M106 which looked very faint, and then went on to look for M51 (which I'd seen before) but no luck this time.  I then realised that the reason I could no longer see stuff in the RACI was actually the approaching dawn, and so I went back to bed for a couple of hours.  I know now that 5am is too late. 

 

[NGC 1502]

Success in your hunt for the Messiers depends on many factors.  Most Messiers are relatively easy some much more difficult.  M108 is among the less bright of the M objects.

Factors for success include- the quality of your sky, the transparency of the sky on the particular night including how close to the zenith the object is, the aperture of your scope, your eyesight and experience in spotting dim objects….

Your opening sentence says it was the first time using your telescope, but  the rest of your post plus your signature says you’ve seen 68/110 Messiers.  Does that mean you’ve used other scopes previously but you have a new scope?

M108 is in the same low power field as M97. M97 is visually the brighter of the two, if you cannot see that then you won’t see 108.  A filter nebula helps with 97 but definitely not with 108, two very different types of object, planetary neb and galaxy.

[Starslayer]

I think he means it was a first using it at that time of day. 👌

[Capt Slog]

Yes, it was first in that I got up to observe.  It wasn't very clear I suppose.

I have stayed up, observing until about 1:30am, but actually getting out of bed, observing and then going back to bed was a first.  Small distinction I know, but never mind.

 

Thinking about it the other day, I realised that  I did get up once to see a meteor shower in  about 1993 or 1994.  It was HUGE.  I recall that the info said it was the 6th(say) and took that to mean 'from midnight on the 5th' which turned out to be correct BUT not what they meant at all.  We sat in the garden in the early hours watching the sky filled with massive meteors, often more than a couple at a time.  When I got into work next day there was excitement about the coming show, and I said "It was last night"     It turned out that I accidentally got the best night.

 

I've resigned myself to the fact that i won't see all the Messiers, he was a bit further south than me after all.  But some are very frustrating when they shouldn't be.

 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Capt Slog

[Davesellars]

On 20/02/2022 at 13:51, Capt Slog said:

I've resigned myself to the fact that i won't see all the Messiers, he was a bit further south than me after all.  But some are very frustrating when they shouldn't be.

 

Yes, M7 will be nigh on impossible from up here.  I managed it in Oxford after over years waiting for the perfect moment. and that's a couple of degrees difference.   Still, some of the really low Messiers are at least bright enough to get a with small aperture if you vacation somewhere further down south at any time!

Your 6" newt will be more that enough though to bag the rest that are far enough up though (the majority!)  Like as has been mentioned it will depend completely on the darkness of your observing site and sky (where are you in Derbyshire?) as well as the transparency of the air on the night...  M108 is quite easily drowned out by bad transparency and light pollution.  Can you see M97 (Owl nebula) without a filter?  If so, then M108 should also be visible.

[Capt Slog]

2 hours ago, Davesellars said:

 

Yes, M7 will be nigh on impossible from up here.  I managed it in Oxford after over years waiting for the perfect moment. and that's a couple of degrees difference.   Still, some of the really low Messiers are at least bright enough to get a with small aperture if you vacation somewhere further down south at any time!

Your 6" newt will be more that enough though to bag the rest that are far enough up though (the majority!)  Like as has been mentioned it will depend completely on the darkness of your observing site and sky (where are you in Derbyshire?) as well as the transparency of the air on the night...  M108 is quite easily drowned out by bad transparency and light pollution.  Can you see M97 (Owl nebula) without a filter?  If so, then M108 should also be visible.

A couple of miles from J25 of the M1 motorway.

Light pollution is bad, but oddly not affecting south as I said originally, despite being able to see the glow from Leicester etc.

M97 is not one I've seen either, but although I said I've been looking for M108, I've just realised that it's actually M97 that I've looked for, the mix up is due to them being in the same FOV.

I don't know if anyone else is having problems, but I can no longer find objects which I've already logged as spotted.  It seems like the sky is very 'dirty' at present, and light pollution has worsened suddenly.

[Davesellars]

The sky has been terrible all this month.  All the "clear" nights have been low or very low transparency here - absolutely nothing like wonderous sky we were getting in January.

Ensure that you wait for Ursa Major to be high enough before attempting M97 (later on in the night works much better at the moment) otherwise you'll be hitting much more LP which will easily wash out the nebula.  M97 is one of those nebulaes though that reacts very well to use of an OIII filter - it can actually make it visible when it's not without the filter.

[bosun21]

On 25/02/2022 at 06:24, Davesellars said:

The sky has been terrible all this month.  All the "clear" nights have been low or very low transparency here - absolutely nothing like wonderous sky we were getting in January.

Ensure that you wait for Ursa Major to be high enough before attempting M97 (later on in the night works much better at the moment) otherwise you'll be hitting much more LP which will easily wash out the nebula.  M97 is one of those nebulaes though that reacts very well to use of an OIII filter - it can actually make it visible when it's not without the filter.

Hi Dave, I’m also from Oxford and rekindled my astronomy bug last year. I’m going to embark on a Messier journey myself very soon. I have an 8” Stella Lyra Dobsonian, a 127 Maksutov Go to, and a 120/1000 achromatic refractor with a semi Apo filter for it if needed. I also bought a Lumicon OIII and Astronomik UHC filters. Is there anything else that I need before starting this journey? Thanks 

[Capt Slog]

4 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Hi Dave, I’m also from Oxford and rekindled my astronomy bug last year. I’m going to embark on a Messier journey myself very soon. I have an 8” Stella Lyra Dobsonian, a 127 Maksutov Go to, and a 120/1000 achromatic refractor with a semi Apo filter for it if needed. I also bought a Lumicon OIII and Astronomik UHC filters. Is there anything else that I need before starting this journey? Thanks 

I would say, patience 

But to be honest, i think you'll find it a doddle with a goto.  I've spent hours in the past just trying to find the right piece of sky.  I'm terrible at translating back to front up and down.  I was MUCH better once I'd got a RACI, but even then, i struggle to know which star I'm looking at if the field is full of them.

 

[bosun21]

2 hours ago, Capt Slog said:

I would say, patience 

But to be honest, i think you'll find it a doddle with a goto.  I've spent hours in the past just trying to find the right piece of sky.  I'm terrible at translating back to front up and down.  I was MUCH better once I'd got a RACI, but even then, i struggle to know which star I'm looking at if the field is full of them.

 

I can sympathize with you in the up/down left/right scenario. I found turning the hand controller upside down helped a great deal with this. I have now conquered this thank goodness 😅 

[Davesellars]

5 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Hi Dave, I’m also from Oxford and rekindled my astronomy bug last year. I’m going to embark on a Messier journey myself very soon. I have an 8” Stella Lyra Dobsonian, a 127 Maksutov Go to, and a 120/1000 achromatic refractor with a semi Apo filter for it if needed. I also bought a Lumicon OIII and Astronomik UHC filters. Is there anything else that I need before starting this journey? Thanks 

You're definitely good to go!   I did all the Messier 110 list with a combination of my (then) Celestron C8 and 80ED refractor.  The filters definitely help in some cases but I can't think of any Messier objects that I had to use them on in order to actually see the object.

[Capt Slog]

Last night, a combination of clean sky and technique bagged me the troublesome  M97 and M108, plus a few more.

I looked for the two above first, but couldn't see them using my 150mm Skywatcher and a 32mm eyepiece, so I looked for something else.  I've been meaning to look at the load of objects which are around the pointy tail-end of Leo.  i positioned the scope in around the right place and found that sort 'letter box'  shape of stars to the side of M58, I worked my way across and thought I just might be able to make out a smudge. 

Looking carefully, "yes, definitely something in the right place", then i wondered what would happed if I upped the magnification?  So, I changed to a 20mm and then combined that with a 2xBarlow.  WOW!  Sure, everything is dimmer, but suddenly the contrast has gone up, and there it is!

Having that epiphany, I moved a bit with the 32mm and tried again, further 'up' (towards Leo) and found where M87 should be, out that came with the 20mm 2x.

"Ah, If it works on those, perhaps it works on M97 and M108? "   Yes it does!  It also got me M105 plus NGC3384.

 

Now, I must qualify the above with the comment that some of what I saw was VERY faint and barely an observation.  For some of the objects, they were only apparent by their absence if I moved the scope a touch, but I'm logging them as seen.

 

I'd heard of the contrast thing, but not thought to use it to that extent.  I'm now going to get an EP around 10 or 12mm, working on the assumption that EP without Barlow is better than EP with.  Well done if you read my waffle this far 

[Nik271]

Well done! In light polluted skies sometimes more magnification helps because it reduses the brightness of the background. I would suggest something like 2mm exit pupil. It works well in my SW Mak 127 for deep sky.

[Capt Slog]

8 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Well done! In light polluted skies sometimes more magnification helps because it reduses the brightness of the background. I would suggest something like 2mm exit pupil. It works well in my SW Mak 127 for deep sky.

I haven't got my head around the idea of exit pupil, yet.  I'll look it up.

[Nik271]

Exit pupil is defined as the scope aperture (in mm) divided by the magnification. Another way to compute it is: focal length of your EP (in mm) divided by the focal ratio of your scope.

Exit pupil is a measure how much light is reaching your eye which affects how bright the image will appear in the eyepiece. The relatonship is qudratic, so exit pupil of 2mm results in 4 times as bright image compared to 1mm exit pupil. The maximum usable exit pipul is the width of your eye pupil which is 5 to 7mm depending on age.  So for example if you have F/5  Newtonian a 40mm EP will give you whopping 8mm exit pupil, too large to be captured all by your eye. 

[Capt Slog]

^^

@Nik271  Thanks for that.  I see from what you've written that a 10mm sounds right for my telescope, which is f/5 

I'll still have a look into the exit pupil thing, to get it clear in my mind.