Finding faint objects.

[Tddun]

Had a try tonight at finding Comet Hartley through my telescope. I tried using Mirphak as a guiding point to getting closer to find the Comet, but yet again, I seem to have trouble getting my telescope pointing on an object that isn't easy to find like The Moon or Jupiter.

I had one idea which was to have someone pointing a laser into the sky of which I could easily find where I'm trying to go by finding that. I just seem to have trouble getting my telescope to point at certain faintish stairs using the finder.

I was wondering how other people would go about finding objects like Comets, Uranus and Neptune etc.

This is my telescope.

[matteboy]

The trouble is you need a small cheap refractor on a rickety EQ1 mount, don't worry I'll do you a swap. I wish I could help but having major problems finding Uranus myself and I've tried 4 times now and failed! I'm sure there'll be proper advice coming soon from someone that knows

[Talitha]

A red dot finder and good atlas/chart make all the difference in the world. Remember to first align the red dot with your eyepiece during the day, and then fine-tune it on Polaris at the beginning of the session. The red dot will get you into the ballpark... from there, use the finder scope to slowly starhop to your target by matching brighter stars in the finderscope to what's on the chart.

It helps to know how large of an area your finder scope covers on the atlas/chart you're using. Determine this by matching a star formation you see in the finderscope to the same formation on the chart. Pencil a circle on the chart which matches the field of view your finderscope. Then trace the circle onto a sheet of clear plastic with ink (a sheet protector works well), and use it as a field of view guide for the chart. Locate your target on the chart, and methodically work your way towards it by coordinating the finderscope view with what's within the ink circle on the plastic. You'll be on target before you know it.

Like any other skill, learning to starhop takes time, so be patient... we all had to crawl before we could run.

[richbyers]

patience, practice, and a sky atlas. also take your laptop/iphone if you have one or something that can have stellarium on if you can with you and put the red backlight on

as for finding things use averted vision by looking out of the corner of your eye where you see things brighter.

i also find that playing around with different magnifications helps, zooming in, then getting a widefield view

rich

[Doc]

Orientate the view on your laptop so it matches the view through your eyepiece, then star hop to your object, takes a little practise but it's not to hard.

[bcfcciderhead]

the only comet i have ever found was next to halfords and tesco's lol

But know, i also have the same trouble, i can get near by finding my way around using the stars but thats has far as it gets

[mdstuart]

Get the book turn left at Orion and practice using the maps in the book to star hop...I can now do it reasonably effectively...

Basically you do need to get used to using your finder and a suitable star map for many many evenings and then you get used to how far apart things are going to be etc...

Good luck...its worth it..

Mark

[NGC 1502]

Good advice here, but I'd like to add that it's best to start with your lowest

power eyepiece, as that will show the biggest chunk of sky, and increase your

chances of finding objects. When you've spotted it, you can use other eyepieces

for the best view.

A finder chart for Comet Hartley is here - http://snipurl.com/18zxcf

If you click on the chart, you get an expanded scrollable one. The date positions

are at the start of that day.

Good luck ! Ed.