What can I see with a 4" Refractor?

[great_bear]

Any comments about how acuarate the ocular view in stelarium is for predicting what will be seen?

By tweaking the settings, you can get it accurate to an almost scary degree for stars for your particular location - but for galaxies, nebulae and clusters - no, it's not even close.

Also, bear in mind that in "real life" visual astronomy at the eyepiece, globular clusters and galaxies tend to appear much smaller than in pictures or as seen in Stellarium, because the boundaries of such objects are very faint and thus blend into the night sky.

[m_j_lyons]

Any comments about how acuarate the ocular view in stelarium is for predicting what will be seen?

There's another thread going around about using Stellarium's ocular plugin to predict what will be seen so I won't repeat all the words. Bottom line: it's pretty good but not perfect - IF you set it up correctly.

[Maximillion]

take yourself out to the countryside with no light pollution. take a starmap or book so you can familiarise yourself with constellations so you can find the objects you are seeking. also take a laptop and i would use a program called stallarium and search for double clusters, nebulaes and the planets. just focus on 1 or 2 things for the time being so you can learn about it like perrin6 says and you will be very impressed. also if you are looking for really good detail with the planets,especially jupiter then maybe

purchase a single axis or a dual axis motor so the image wont go out the FOV. then you can fiddle with high magnifications and focusing without the image going out the FOV

regards

[SiriusB]

This will not improve the view.

IMO It might well do in an f10 refractor,rather depends on the quality of the barlow.

I'd chose the ep only in an f10 anyday, but admit the difference if using a quality barlow would be negligible.

Far better to wait till the Autumn when Jupiter will be higher in the sky once more for a better view, (barlow or not.)