I can't find anything!

[coffee_prince]

I can look up in the sky and pick out constellations, but when looking through the finderscope/ep I cannot find any DSO

Tonight I tried looking for the ring nebulae, is right next to Vega (In Lyra). I get Vega is my eyepiece and when start panning around I cannot see the Ring Nebula at all.

So I looked at stellarium and hunted for this cluster that lies south of cassopeia. Again I get Cassopeia roughly in view in my eyepiece and finderscope, I pan south, but I cannot find it!

I don't know what to do :s

I was using my 25mm to pan around, thats 48x

-

On the positive side Jupiter looks great tonight and with the moon gone there seems to be much more stars visible

[Gweedo]

I've just seen the ring nebula for the first time in my TAL 1. I was surpised how small it was in the eyepiece and had to use averted vision to see it - once I had found it, it was easy enough to see. I was using my lowest power eyepiece to get as much light into my eye - all I can say is use averted vision and look for the mall things!

[Perryellis]

I have just seen the ring nebula for the first time aswell. I could not actually see it through the finderscope but I knew where it was from looking at stellarium. It appeared not much bigger than a star, looked sort of like a tiny doughnut.

I found the double cluster by working my way up from the star merphak. Just go up in a straight line and you cant miss it...Good luck!

[lulu57]

Can't find anything?

I know what you mean...tried looking down the back of the settee?:(

(Do you hear the call of Goto yet...?)

[Doc]

Basically it's just practise and experience. You will get there eventually and as soon as you do, you will find it will all click into place and the next time it will become easier.

[coffee_prince]

I kinda wish I bought that intelliscope xt8!

I need to improve on finding things otherwise this hobby isn't going to fair well, even if I've always wanted to get into it as a kid!

I really think a telrad, erecting prism and erecting finderscope would really help me, but I am refraining for now as that kit all adds up to a lot of ££ for me

[Doc]

Learn to star hop.

1. Orientate Stellarium so it exactly matches the view through your eyepiece.

2. Calculate your limiting magnitude and decrease the magnitude of the stars in Stellarium to match so that you only see stars on the screen that you can see through the eyepiece.

3. Then find a bright star near the object you want to see.

4. Then star hop using stellarium as a guide to your desired object.

Remember that alot of the dimmer objects will not be visible and you will need maybe a larger scope or darker skies.

[matt c]

Have you tied M31? or you could try M2 and M15 both bright globular clusters.

HTH good luck

[Perryellis]

File:Vega in lyra.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Once you see the parallelogram shape and see where star b and y are you should be able to just scroll across from one star to the other and see the nebula about halfway between the two

b star has 3 quite bright just underneath it and y star has a sort of j shape of stars under it. I hope that makes some sense to you:rolleyes:

[Kef9]

I had a problem when I was on holiday in non light polluted skies that I couldn't navigate using my finderscope because there were too many stars visible in the finder! This was my first dark sky experience. I too was looking for the ring nebula but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Come to tonight with my new startravel 150 and I found it straight away in light polluted skies! madness!

I think the solution is to use a red dot finder. you can then just point at the right patch of sky and you will find targets that much easier. I still need to get one! Using a cobination of equetorial mount and finderscope is very confusing for a beginner!

[mark7331]

Learn to star hop

I agree totally with Mick and would add this: Try to do a little planning before you get out with your scope. If you spend just half an hour working out what you're going to observe and the "landmarks" that will lead you to them you'll have much more success.

Clear skies.

Mark

[redfox1971]

ive managed to see the swan nebula(ngc 6618) tonight and pluto just as dusk was comeing,just looked like a star though,good andromeda tonight,just look for grey smudges in night sky be itheir star clusters or galaxy,star clusters are great,galaxys dont show much less u image.

[pvaz]

I kinda wish I bought that intelliscope xt8!

I need to improve on finding things otherwise this hobby isn't going to fair well, even if I've always wanted to get into it as a kid!

I really think a telrad, erecting prism and erecting finderscope would really help me, but I am refraining for now as that kit all adds up to a lot of ££ for me

I got the XT8i and I rarely use it. After you get the hang of star hoping it's much more fun. You definitely need a Telrad, as for the RA finder it's pretty much useless unless you have strong LP.

Just make sure you do get the right pair of stars in Lyra and point the scope between them (you should see both stars on the finder). I'm pointing this out cause you said you started on Vega and there are 2 similar pairs of stars in the constellation. M57 is inside the pair further away from Vega.

At 48x it will look like an out of focus star (very easy to miss), at 120x it's a tiny smoke ring.

[Mikea]

What scope do you have coffee_prince?

M57 is quite a challenge for my 130P - very faint. Double cluster should be easier to pick up though. Keep trying!!

[Gweedo]

I've got a telrad and have found it MUCH easier than using the finderscope. You can alos get maps that show how to find object by star hopping across the graticules on the Telrad.

[AWR]

I need to improve on finding things otherwise this hobby isn't going to fair well, even if I've always wanted to get into it as a kid!

I really think a telrad, erecting prism and erecting finderscope would really help me, but I am refraining for now as that kit all adds up to a lot of ££ for me

I like stellarium but I found Turn Left at Orion much more helpful. In the book, each object has three views: A naked eye view, a finderscope view and then the view through the scope.

Some things I couldn't see - they were just too faint (my sky too light) but I felt confident I was looking in the right place.

Equipment wise, my 127 Mak came with a shoddy red-dot finder. It was too bright (and more of a splodge than a dot) and my skies were too light. I bought a RA finderscope (although not the erecting one) and a Rigel Quikfinder.

I find that the Quikfinder gets me to the right area of the sky (corresponding to the first view in Turn Left). Then I use the finderscope, and then the object.

HTH

Andrew