What should orions nebulae look like?

[coffee_prince]

I have a dob 8 inch and using the stock eyepieces included I can see it as faint cloud and three stars in the middle. Is this how it should be seen?

I can only see the faint fuzzy cloud with 25mm, the 10mm is useless.

How can I go about getting better views, what can I expect to see in terms of clarity?

I saw the pleiades a while back and was much more impressed with that.

Thanks

[nicnac]

suprised that the 10mm is useless, have you collimated your mirrors?

[coffee_prince]

when I first got it, I have not used it much since I bought it because of the cold weather.

What kinda of magnification should I be using? At 10mm the cloud disappears

200mm

f5.9

focal length 1200mm

[John]

Low to medium power - it looked good with my 6" scope at 45x and 90x tonight.

Things that would make it look poor would include any light pollution, moonlight, high level thin cloud and eyes that have just come from a bright place (ie: not dark adapted).

This is a drawing of M42 as seen with a scope like yours at 37.5x:

http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/images/2010/img2010011401_M42lg.jpg

I looked pretty much like that with my 6" scope tonight as well.

[stolenfeather]

The Orion nebula is a Messier object that completely mesmerizes me each time I look at it. I'm sorry that you did not have the same feeling. Give it another try,...

Isabelle

[umadog]

John has nailed it. The biggest thing which will effect your views are conditions. Where do you live? With lots of light pollution, M42 will look a lot less impressive.

Here it is under increasing light pollution with a 10"

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a109/markseibold/_______OrionNebula_DarkSky_.jpg

Although, frankly, I find those views slightly fanciful. I think this is a more accurate depiction of what you can see through an 8"

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/attachments/3415412-M42%20-%20Orion%20Nebula%20Sketch.jpg

[coffee_prince]

They looked nothing like that, no cloud like quality, just a white blur and the three points

I live in Bristol, which has awful light pollution

[ozwebuk]

LIke they say you should see some detail with a 150mm scope. I know I have

[alowen]

Coincidence or what, i spent a good time observing Orions nebulae last night through my dads Meade LS6. With the 26mm ep (meade 4000 series) it was awesome. The dust clouds are so impressive. It literally silenced me for some time.

Al

[yoda]

HI coffee_prince I to was looking at orion lastnight and because of LP it looks like a mist ball in space but I still think it looks fantastic.

[todd8137]

hi ,you must have had bad conditions my mate as a 4" reflector and it looks great a 8 inch should make it look even better did you have no joy at all with the 10mm

[kniclander]

with the 25mm e/p you should actually be seeing 4 stars in the middle pretty easily however bad your LP. I suspect either it's a colimation problem (but unlikely it would be that far out unless soemone's tinkered with it) or dew on the e/p or secondary mirror perhaps if you left the scope out a while? I must say the "drawing" of the view through the 8" is pretty "impressive" in terms of the clarity of M43 and the nebula sort of meeting up with itself at the bottom.

the supplied skyatcher 10mm e/p is pretty poor but not that bad. something else is clearly wrong.

[John]

If you use too much power you only see the central region of the nebula which would I guess look like a relatively shapeless misty patch. You should see the 4 stars of the Trapezium embedded in it pretty easily with an 8" though.

If you have lots of light pollution then that could be the culprit - it does not take much to reduce even the brightest deep sky objects to vague, shapeless patches of misty light.

Try and get out to a rural dark sky location. Bristol AS are running open viewing evenings at Tyntesfield House (National Trust) just a few miles from Bristol - see their website and the Tyntesfield House one for details !.

I live 12 miles SW of Bristol so I'm familliar with it's LP "glow"

[PeterM]

I have a dob 8 inch and using the stock eyepieces included I can see it as faint cloud and three stars in the middle. Is this how it should be seen?

I can only see the faint fuzzy cloud with 25mm, the 10mm is useless.

How can I go about getting better views, what can I expect to see in terms of clarity?

I saw the pleiades a while back and was much more impressed with that.

Thanks

Something's definitely not quite right as I regularly get very nice views using 8mm (barlowed 16mm) in an eight inch dob. Light pollution (or light of any kind including from the moon) dramatically shrinks what you can see to just the central stars and a little bit of nebulosity, so that sounds like what you're experiencing. With the naked eye can you see any kind of fuzziness around the middle star in Orion's sword?

Pleides is far more robust and stands up well under even a full moon, which adds more weight to the LP problem.

A UHC filter would probably vastly improve the situation.

[umadog]

Make sure you're not expecting too much. Google "m42 sketches" and peruse the images. Note that some drawings will have details exaggerated (as did the first one I showed). Don't expect colour and don't expect crisp views, as you see in the photos. Take a look at some other DSOs in order to compare with the Orion nebula. Right now you can go for, say, M81 and M82, a galaxy pair that's bright and high in the sky. It'll punch through light pollution.

[coffee_prince]

I'm going to give it another go, I think I needed more time for the scope to cool as it was a spur of the moment thing, or check collimartion etc.

There is a lot of skyglow, but I am used to that.

So many variables to tinker with, I'll be sure to update on how it goes.

But the weather is awful for the rest of the week, typical!

Thanks

[JamesM]

I'm from Bristol and I have had pretty good views using a 4" reflector so I have a hunch that perhaps there might be a problem. Send me a PM if you want to meet up so I can have a look if you want. It's very difficult for anyone who is new to astronomy to establish a bench mark when observing an object to know if what you're seeing is as good as it can be or if there is a problem.

It's important to get the kit up and running properly!

James

[Vega]

You mention the cold weather, but these are the nights you gotta try and view DSO's. Reason being the light pollution is your enemy here. If we get a cold northerly or easterly wind, the sky is 'cleaner' so there is less muck up there for light pullution to be reflected back down to us. think of it this way, if we had no atmosphere, light pollution wouldn't be much of a problem at all. So we need to find the nights that are the 'cleanest and crispest'

Matt