Confused.com

[insomnia]

My aim last night was to dedicate the evening to finding M57.

according to Stellarium I was in the right area, but it remained elusive.

I was scanning the area with both 25mm and 20mm ep's. As I was scanning below vega I suddenly noticed what looked like a red star.

I then went to a 10mm to try and get closer. This proved inadequate, so I added a 2x barlow. This just made the object fuzzy and less defined. But what I did see I can only really describe as having a red core with lighter red radiating from it.

Seeing conditions were less than ideal, very bright moon, and street lights made my garden almost unusable for any DSO's

If I had indeed found M57, has anyone else seen it looking like this?

[Astronut]

Dont' think you found it - it's certainly not red. Once you've found it you'll have no trouble next time - it's actually one of the easier objects to find. It looks like an elongated but almost circular grey smoke ring. It'll be very small at those magnifications though (x26 with 25mm, x32 with 20mm, x64 with 20mm + barlow) - I'm assuming you're using the 130pm skywatcher in your sig)

[insomnia]

Yep I was using my 130. I was not totally convinced that I found it but This object was the only thing that I was able to find in the area defined by stellarium.

The bad light pollution made for a really disappointing session.

[dweller25]

I live just north of Manchester so light pollution is an issue.

Last year I found M57 in my C9.25 and it was very faint indeed.

In the less than ideal conditions you talk about I am not surprised you struggled.

Do you have access to a really dark site ???

[insomnia]

I can prob find something close by as I live in the fens in East Anglia, plenty of fields and wide open spaces. I can feel Aperture fever setting in already.

[Doc]

You should be able to see M57 quite easy in your scope but as has already been pointed out you may need darker skies. Don't expect anything huge to appear it will resemble a very small grey donut shape ring.

There's no colour apparent so not sure what that red object you saw was maybe just a red giant star.

[insomnia]

Now I know that I have to look for a grey object then I can focus on that, rather than expecting to see a technicolour wonder.

I am just peeved that I was in the right area but could not see anything that did not look just like a normal star.

[Doc]

Even in light polluted skies you should see the stars Beta Lyra and Gamma lyra. Now M57 is almost exactly half way between these two stars.

[Beulah]

I have found M57 on the three successive nights - but with great difficulty - even when there are no light pollution problems. This isn't the first time I have read people having problems finding it - had an email from a pal this morning saying the same thing!

I think it may be due to the fact of where it is positioned in Lyra - in my experience, I put it down to the limitations of Alt-Azimuth.

The more I observe M57, the more I see a bluish hue to the nebula - more prominent with the 25mm with 2X barlow. (8 inch dob)