M57 problems!

[Talitha]

That's fantastic, Eugene!

[drummerp]

M57 - The Ring Nebula was one of my best views over the recent star party week on the Thursday evening the sky's were reasonable dark and very clear and M57 was very clear through the 12" dob looked just like a donut, yum yum !! Keep try amanda you'll see it soon as i was also able to view it through my 130pm with a 12mm eyepiece and 2x barlow, very small though and much fainter but could make out the shape and darker center clearly.

cheers

Neil

[ashenlight]

thanks Neil, found it a while ago now, it is very much like a doughnut! one of my favourite objects so far always return to it for another look

[Specman]

I found M57 on Sunday but as shown in Apachy's picture above that was about the size of it in a 4mm EP giving about 160x. I did a whole raft of Messiers DSO's and couldn't see most of them at lower powers, but when I put a camera on and did a 1 minute exposure, bingo! There it was!

In fact using the camera to see those faint objects for me is the best solution. I was losing faith in my alignment until I slewed to 6 DSO's, blind so to speak, with my camera mounted on the back of my scope, took a 1 min exposure at 800 ISO with the camera set up in BULB mode and a remote shutter release. Every target was dead centre and you can zoom in for a better peek.

The camera see's so much more than the naked eye. I would thoroughly recommend you try it.

Happy hunting and good luck!

Clear skies!

Mark